November 22
by Atlas Arrow
Summary: Sequal to 'Most Dangerous Game'. After Sententia the Academy is busy licking its wounds. However, when mysterious men come looking for .05, it doesn't take long for the revenge-seeking Cains to come back into the picture. Kraken/Vanya and Rumor/Space
1. Chapter 1

The waitress's blue eyes never left the odd costumers. In many ways she was like most women who worked at diners, tired looking with bleach-blonde hair and a plastic smile. Everything was normal, down to the blue doll-dress uniform with the apron. Her hair was even in a hairnet. Her motivations were similar; family needed money so she'd started to pull double shifts.

She watched in quiet amusement and chomped down on her gum. It wasn't often that she watched customers. Well, scratch that. It wasn't often that she watched costumers and enjoyed it. People disgusted her with their untidy ways and habits to over-indulge in coffee. She carried quite a bit of cynicism for someone so young.

Even though these two were keeping her from being able to clean up they were worth watching. At first she'd thought that they were commonplace weirdos. They certainly looked it with those goofy cartoon masks. They had interesting conversations though, mostly about sugar. One of them had ordered the blueberry pie so that meant that any minute now there would be an explosive-

"HURK!"

-and there it was.

"What's wrong Cha-Cha?" the other man asked

"This pie is terrible!" Cha-Cha exclaimed as he stabbed it violently with his fork, "It's rotten, it's vile! Hazel, it's even worse then vegetables!"

"Can't be that bad," said Hazel as he reached over with his fork.

"DON'T-!"

His warning came too late as Hazel swallowed the piece of pie. Soon after he ate it he started to make motions that betrayed his want to rip his throat out so the pie wouldn't make it to his stomach. This motion too came too late. Grabbing a cup of coffee he wolfed it down, trying to get rid of the flavor.

"Dude, that was **disgusting**," Hazel said when he finished.

"I told you man," Cha-Cha sighed.

The waitress stifled a giggle and finished wiping the counter. Hazel looked up.

"Why're you so happy? You make this poison so you can watch people die? 'Cause I can totally dig that, just not with desserts."

Smiling the waitress said;

"No, I don't. Bob does. I just serve it. I'm happy because my shift's over soon."

"That's cool," said Hazel, "But I need to kill whoever made this. So if you could bring 'Bob' out here…"

Chewing her gum a bit the waitress went to the back of the diner. Bob had his back to her and she started to blow a large bubble with her gum. Then she popped it loudly to get his attention. He turned around and glared at her.

"What 'ya want now bitch?" he snapped.

Giving a terse smile she replied;

"Customer complaint. They say the pie's bad. Now if you would actually use ingredients that didn't fall off the back of a truck-"

"Now you're telling me how to run my business?" he snarled, "Outta my way."

On his way to the diner he shoved her roughly to the side. Putting one hand on her hips she used the other to flip him off behind his back. Then she grabbed a tray to gather used glasses from the counter and started to walk towards the door to the restaurant.

"You make this?" one of the odd men asked.

"Yeah, what's it to you?" Bob answered as the waitress walked through the door into the front of the restaurant.

An answering blam echoed through the diner.

"You killed him with one bullet? Dude, not cool."

"Yeah, but we're in a hurry," said Hazel, "We've got to go find .05 remember? We're not even near the city yet. Best get moving."

"Ohhhhhhhhh right," Cha-Cha nodded, "Totally slipped my mind."

They both turned to the waitress who was looking at them with shock.

"Guess we have to kill her now too. Don't worry; I'll make this one slow. Professional pride and all that," said Hazel.

Hazel shot out a bullet that was meant to incapacitate her. Instead of it impairing her movement nerves it bounced off of the tray that she shoved in front of her face. A minute later the tray flew like a discus towards the two men who managed to duck, keeping it from severing their heads. When they both looked up again the back door was flapping wildly. Outside a car started, taking off at what must've been a good hundred miles over the speed limit.

"Should we like, go after her?" asked Hazel.

Cocking his head Cha-Cha looked at the tray. It had buried itself into the wall. He bent down on his knees to get a closer look.

"Aren't these supposed to be made of plastic?" he said as he inspected the sharp metal edges, "Thought it was plastic when she came in."

"Unimportant," Hazel dismissed, "But I don't think she's going to be a problem. Just some bimbo waitress."

"Agreed," sighed Cha-Cha as he got up, "Just let me do the next one, 'kay? I haven't killed anyone in five hours now."

"I'm sorry man," Hazel said as they wandered to their car, "But guess what? I got Little Cadette's Cookies in the car. I was saving them."

"Thin mints?" Cha-Cha asked, perking up.

"Always."

.

.

.

Digging around in the glove compartment the waitress thought about how far she was from the diner. Quickly she did the calculations in her head. Going at two hundred miles an hour and seeing as she'd been travelling for half an hour that was one hundred miles. She visualized the map in her mind. As she did so she realized that she had already crossed the state line. Those weirdos were far behind her.

She smiled to herself. It was going to be an interesting few days. Finally there was some action again. Things had been slow to say the least over the past few months, what with holding a nine to five job. At first it had been fun and different. It had become boring quickly though.

From the glove compartment she took out a cell phone. Scrolling down the speed dial she made a call and kept one hand leisurely on the wheel. Her contacts were itching like a mother.

"On your way home?" a voice asked as the phone was picked up.

"Yeah, I'm on interstate 51. Got off early. Guess what happened at work today."

"I can't even begin to. Did you get coffee spilt on yourself?"

"Nope," she laughed, popping the p, "You're such a joker. But these two guys come in right, and they're complaining about the pie."

"This sounds like it'll be hilarious," yawned the voice on the other side of the phone, "But it can wait until you get home. Otherwise it's a waste of minutes."

"No," she said, "You're going to want to hear this. So Bob comes out, and this is great, they shoot him. I mean, like right in the head!"

The voice on the other end of the phone paused.

"Have you been drinking?"

"I'm hurt," she pouted, "this really happened. And get this, and then they say that they're looking for .05! Now what do you think of that?"

Once again there was another pause.

"You're sure you weren't drinking?"

"Come on," she whined, "I'm not **this **creative."

A small and rather raspy chuckle came from the other side of the line.

"How far are you from home?"

"About fifteen minutes," she said, "I drive fast."

"Well get home," the voice said, "We're going to have to figure out what to do with this information. Good work though. But slow down. We're all in trouble if you crash again."

"All right," she said as she hung up the phone.

Alchemist grinned in the review mirror. It wouldn't be long now.


	2. Chapter 2

Vanya stretched as she woke up in the morning. It was a glorious feeling to be able to do that now. For weeks she hadn't been able to move at all. Now her entire upper torso was under control. Her legs, however, were a different story. She could feel them at this point but she couldn't do anything with them. Oh well, she'd work on that somehow.

Only thing she didn't know how to work on was her memory. The doctors had told her that it would come back gradually. Of course, they didn't know that she could tell from the look in their eyes that they meant 'if' it came back. Sometimes she wondered how they could have such terrible bedside manners. Of course, they had no idea what it felt like to wake up and not know who you were. How could they?

Sighing she ran her hands through her hair. She knew she hadn't always been partially immobile with no memories. There had to have been a time where she was someone with a job, friends, hobbies, etc. The doctors mentioned something about the violin, but they told her she'd be unable to do that. A slight feeling of despair came over her. Mornings were never a good time to be thinking about things too deeply.

Her eyes flickered over to her nightstand. A book that hadn't been there the night before now graced it. Curiously she reached out and grabbed it. Looking at the cover she saw that it was some sort of mystery novel. She really loved these. She didn't know how she knew that. Even so, whenever she picked one up and read it she felt a sense of contentment. Humming to herself quietly she flipped over to the first page. By the time Pogo came in with breakfast she'd gotten through the first chapter and felt better.

"Here you go," he said as he placed the tray in front of her.

"Thanks," she said, smiling and putting the book down.

She could see Pogo's eyes flicker over to it briefly. Then he went over and opened the curtains to her room as she ate.

"Anything else Vanya?" he asked.

"No," she said, "Thanks though."

Nodding once Pogo headed towards the door. As he did so she added;

"Well, maybe you could tell Diego thanks for the book."

Pogo poked his head around the door frame.

"How do you know it was him?"

Vanya laughed.

"I just kind of do. It's really nice of him, and I want to thank him for it."

"Why don't you do it yourself?" asked Pogo.

Looking down Vanya said;

"I don't think he wants to talk to me. I mean, when he's in here he just kind of grunts. **When **he's in here, which isn't too often. I keep thinking I did something before my accident to make him angry…but then he does really nice things like leave books and flowers and stuff so…in any case, if you see him say I said thanks. If you don't mind."

Pogo looked at her sadly before nodding. He walked out of the door and closed it gently behind him. Haphazardly Vanya picked up the book and resumed reading.

.

.

.

"So the judges still say you only get visitation rights on weekends?" Space asked.

Rumor nodded. The two of them were sitting on the outside patio and Rumor looked like she'd been hit with a wrecking crane. Dark circles stood out prominently under her eyes and she looked listlessly at her food. In the end she pushed it away from her as though she were too sick to eat. Tiredly she started fishing around in her pockets.

"How's sign language coming?" he asked in an attempt to change the subject.

Producing a pad of paper and a pen she started scribbling on a notebook;

"Not good. This way's faster."

Spaceboy nodded in agreement. After awhile he said;

"Pogo told me that you were working late, trying to get a lead on the Cains."

"So?" she wrote, "Shouldn't we all?"

"Yes, they're still a threat. But I think you've been trying to do too much," he said with some concern, "You've been under a lot of stress lately from a lot of different places. Perhaps you should take it a bit easier."

"I'm not trying to do too much," she wrote.

"You're trying to bring down rather powerful and probably rather angry siblings as well as get better visitation rights for Claire," he said, "I'd say that constitutes as just a little too much for someone who just had an…accident."

"I don't care what the jury says. Claire likes it better with us," scribbled Rumor.

Oddly enough that was true. Claire had been to visit a few times after Rumor had taken up permanent residence at the Academy. She'd been completely awed by the mansion and her famous 'uncles' and 'white aunt'. She'd actually responded to Space quite well which had secretly pleased him.

Claire had tried to be a little adventurer herself. She'd made a mask out of cardboard and taken to running around the halls and fighting imaginary villains. Unlike her mother she loved the televator and the spaciousness of the mansion. Then again, who wouldn't like having superheroes for your family? Well, besides any member of the Hargreeves family. Little Claire didn't know the half of it.

She was due back in two days. He knew it was killing Rumor not to have Claire there all of the time though.

"Just…don't stress yourself out," he said at last, placing one of his large hands over her smaller ones.

Rumor smiled vaguely and nodded. Deep down he knew that she wouldn't listen to him. She was still resentful about Alchemist stealing her voice and wanted her to be punished somehow. She also wanted her daughter back. While Space could sympathize with the latter of the two wishes he felt that the first one was something she was too obsessed with.

He didn't voice any of this though. Over the past few weeks he had adopted a very cautious approach to her. Space had never really had a relationship with her, so he figured that the best way to go about this was to not be argumentative. He wasn't ready for her to be mad at him yet.


	3. Chapter 3

"So you can't get cookies because…?" asked Pogo.

"Ask Allison to do it," Séance said on the other side of the phone, "It's not like she's gonna say no."

Pogo sighed in frustration as the phone clicked off. Séance had always been the most manageable of the Hargreeves. Now he was going around acting like a teenage celebrity. Not just a normal one though. He would be one with a bad boy image that was always getting sent to rehab. Pogo felt like everything was getting more complicated.

.05 had started gambling huge sums of money. Nine times out of ten he ended up winning big. Pogo suspected that this had something to do with his time travelling skills. Well, even if he was fixing races there was nothing Pogo could do about it. He had basically stopped being a surrogate father when the children realized that they could do just fine without one. They didn't come to him for answers much anymore. Sometimes when he tried to talk to them he felt like he was running into a rather sturdy brick wall.

Speaking of brick walls he spotted Kraken opening a window on his way upstairs.

"Diego?" he called.

Kraken paused and turned back.

"Yeah?" he grunted, "Whatever it is make it quick. I've got a date with some Chinese gangsters down at the docks. Think the ringleader's some kind of zombie."

"Interesting. Well, this is about…Vanya," said Pogo.

"Not this again."

"She's under the impression that you're angry at her," Pogo continued, ignoring what Kraken had said, "I think maybe talking to her might-"

"I'm busy right now," said Kraken as he turned towards the window.

"-be better then leaving her things when she's asleep," finished Pogo.

Kraken paused, resting his hands on the window still.

"How do you know?" he asked quietly.

"Who else?" shrugged Pogo, "Besides, the security cameras are still on in her room. Either way she's figured it out. She wants to say thank you."

There was no response from Kraken.

"Perhaps you should tell her that-" Pogo started.

"No," Kraken said firmly.

"The doctors said-"

"I know," interrupted Kraken again, "But I can't tell her right now."

"Why not?" asked Pogo.

"When I walk in there," said Kraken at length, "she looks at me like she's trying to figure out who I am. There's something uncomprehending and searching in that look. But there's no recognition, and it's a lot different from how she used to look at me. That's why I come at night. I don't want to see that look."

He paused for a minute.

"Furthermore I'm not even sure that I want her to remember. I'm not sure…after what happened; I don't think that I want to leave myself open for this again. 'Cause it seems to me that all caring about someone does is hurt like hell."

Before Pogo could say anything else Kraken had climbed out the window. Pogo sighed once and continued upstairs. It looks like he'd been right. Things **were **getting more complicated.

.

.

.

"I say we do what we do best," Alchemist said, twirling a paper streamer between her fingers. It changed shape from a butterfly, to a pen, and to a cookie as she did so.

"Which means you want to charge in there and kill all of them?" asked Reaper, tapping the table with his fingers.

For the fiftieth time since Alchemist had come back from the diner Reaper and she were discussing their options. All of their conversations ended where they started though. So there wasn't much progress on that front. Neither of them was willing to budge in their opinions either.

The months had passed quite slowly. Being on the run wasn't as enjoyable as Alchemist had thought that it would be. That wasn't saying that she didn't like the freedom of it all. Different hotel rooms every few nights were fun and interesting. There were other aspects she didn't appreciate as much though. Most prominent was the fact that they were on the run in the first place. She popped a piece of gum into her mouth and started chewing.

"Perhaps a bit more subtle," she shrugged, "I can be subtle."

"About as subtle as an atomic bomb," Reaper said.

"We built up a crime web back home," said Alchemist as she chewed, "We could do it all over again. After we kill the Umbrella brats of course. Then we could just go around all day having fun. Right now I say we get .05 out of the way while we can and kill the rest of them in their sleep. Simple."

"Athena," explained Reaper, "you know the real reason we haven't done any of that is because of-"

"Because of me?"

Both of the siblings turned around as Cat walked unsteadily into the room. Reaper got to his feet and put his hands on her shoulders.

"I must be growing small again," Cat sighed as she gazed off into the distance.

"You shouldn't be out of bed," he said firmly, "Go back to sleep."

She swayed slightly.

"Not until I say this," she said faintly, "Just let it go. Let it go and get on with things. I'm quite happy right now, with just the three of us. Just…let it go."

"We shouldn't be hunted like animals," protested Alchemist, "They were part of the game as much as we were. They killed Helene and Arkady. It's not fair that we're the only ones who should get punished."

"I'm not saying they were in the right either," said Cat as she leaned her forehead against the wall, "but I'm just tired of fighting. We should've ended it instead of continuing it. They didn't want any part of it but we dragged them back. Perhaps…we owe them."

As she spoke she started to slide down the wall. Reaper gently picked her back up and laid her down on one of the beds. Alchemist checked to make sure she was asleep before saying;

"You agree with me. So why not just go out and do it?"

"I don't want to upset her," Reaper said as he laid a gentle kiss on Cat's forehead, "She's been through enough as it is."

The body of the invalid Cat was currently possessing was both dead and alive. The comatose mind of the original owner of the body was dead, but the body was still alive. Cat had hitched a ride in it and gone to get her siblings from the prison. With her help they had been able to escape with little difficulty.

Only problem about the body was that it was incredibly weak. For about 4/5 of the day Cat was forced to stay in bed or collapse from exhaustion. While Reaper and Alchemist had urged her to get a new body she had refused, saying she'd already killed enough people. As such she was always very weak.

"My point still stands," Alchemist said.

"As does mine," sighed Reaper, "As long as they stay away then I won't lay a finger on them. If they're within my sight though, we kill them all. Understand?"

"Yes Reaper," Alchemist said obediently.


	4. Chapter 4

Kraken thought angrily about what Pogo had said to him earlier that night. The fight with the Chinese gangsters hadn't calmed down his nerves as much as he thought it would've. All it had sufficed to do was tiring him out and making him angrier. Having no subject other then the disagreement with Pogo he simply concentrated on that.

What gave him the right to dictate? Out of all of his siblings Kraken had been the least coachable from age three onwards. No one was allowed to tell him what to do anymore. That was why he had left the Academy in the first place. He resented not being able to use his free will. He stalked down the hallway angrily as he thought about it all.

Things weren't meant to be this fucked up right now. Damn Aliens and their stupid little games. Everything had been straightforward before then. Now he was living with his family. He'd said that he'd take care of Vanya. Space however, had insisted it would be better if she stayed at there. In the end the 'interests of the family' had won out. That was the only reason Kraken was staying with his stupid family. Yet every time she looked at him uncomprehendingly he wanted to start running and never go back.

He stopped walking and looked at the number on the door. He clenched his fists. Why did his feet bring him here every night? Why couldn't he just go to his own room? No, every night he had to come here. Part of him didn't want to go in. Why bother fighting it though? He knew he'd just come back later if he went now.

Opening the door to Vanya's room slowly he checked to make sure that she was sleeping. The light was turned off and the only noise in the room was the steady beep of the heart monitor. Good. Quietly he closed the door behind him and walked over to the chair beside her bed. Sitting down in it he looked at her face.

With the lights turned off it was impossible to see how pale her skin was and it was even difficult to see the heart monitor. In the darkness it was like the events of a few months ago had never happened. It was like at this time of night, in this room, time had moved backwards. Gently he brushed strands of her hair out of her face. She gave a little sigh of contentment but didn't wake up. She'd always been a relatively heavy sleeper.

He let his hand rest on her forehead for a bit and smiled. After a few minutes he pulled it away leaned back in his chair. The events of the night had pushed him more then he'd anticipated. Yet the quiet was calming his frazzled nerves. Even now it was making him feel more at ease, more peaceful. It was getting difficult to keep his eyes open, but under no circumstances could he fall asleep. That wouldn't be good for anyone. So he blinked back tiredness, determined not to give in…

.

.

.

It was night now, one of the rare ones that Kraken had decided to take off. He had never done so before Vanya had reentered his life but he found them rather relaxing. It was even better when he held her in his arms like this before drifting off. Again sleep wasn't something he had in abundance before she'd come back. It was all rather good.

Two hours ago Kraken had heard from one of his police friends about Rumor's divorce. Vanya had seemed a little shocked from the news. Kraken had never actually met the man, but he never thought that Rumor was capable of deep feelings.

"I didn't expect this to happen," Vanya said as she continued their conversation, "I didn't know him for very long, I just saw him for a few minutes in the ceremony. Yet they seemed happy."

"Most couples who get involved in domestic disputes were happy when it began," grunted Kraken, "Personally I was surprised to see that she had a relationship that lasted long enough to get married. Not just because she was flighty. Hargreeves didn't like her having any 'followers' as he called them."

Idly Vanya started tracing patterns on his chest.

"He made her stop seeing a lot of her boyfriends, didn't he?" she asked.

"Yeah," said Kraken cocking his head as he heard tenseness in Vanya's voice, "Gerard, Mikey, Frank, Ray and Bob. Those are just the ones he remembered. Even after she left the Academy he managed to kill her relationships. That guy must'vebeen Satan the way he managed things."

He saw Vanya look down before realizing the real reason she had asked.

"No," he said firmly, "He won't be coming near us. I can promise you that."

"We both know he's controlling. And you said he's asking about me," she said.

Kraken swore internally. Earlier that day Lupo had told him that Hargreeves was making inquiries about Vanya's disappearance. Lupo had said that he'd gone away looking both suspicious and unsatisfied. Being the idiot that he was he had passed the information on to Vanya.

"I can't help but wonder if-" Vanya started.

"No," Kraken snarled as he gripped her wrist tightly, "I've already told the old bat repeatedly that if he comes within so much as twenty feet of me I'll kill him. I won't let him take you from me. If he so much as fucking **breathes** wrong near you he's going to be all over the walls. Understand?"

He started to release his grip on her wrists. Bruises were already forming on her skin, right next to the ones he'd given her the night she said she'd stay with him. Damn it. He hadn't meant to say that. Softer and with a gentler tone he added;

"I don't make the same mistake twice Vanya. I know what I want, and it's you."

"As long as you want me here," she said, "Then I'll stay."

"Get ready to check in forever," he replied as he brought her wrist to his lips.

He closed his eyes and breathed in the scent of her skin. Moving his face upwards he planted a kiss that was anything but chaste on her lips. Vanya's arms encircled around his neck and he could feel her fingers running through his hair. She moaned as he pulled her closer.

.

.

.

With a start Kraken woke up. A few rays of light were leaking into the room from behind the curtains. He looked at the clock beside Vanya's bed and let out an angry sigh. It was past time for him to go. Why did he have to fall asleep? Irritably he got up, careful not to make too much noise.

As he got up he looked at her. She was still sleeping peacefully, but now it was completely obvious that it wasn't months ago. Her snow-white skin shimmered in the few rays of light and the heart monitor was glaringly obvious. It was like the whole scene was mocking him, telling him how times had changed for the worse when he least expected them to.

He could still remember the look in her eyes when she told him she loved him. He could still remember the scent of her skin and the feel of her lips. Yet that's all it was. He could **remember** things that had passed. That's all it was now. Just like the dream, the past had given way to a rather bleak present and even bleaker future. Sighing angrily he stalked out of her room before anyone could see him.


	5. Chapter 5

.05 came in late that night. Rather, he came in early. Early the next day that is. It must've been around three in the morning. In any case, he was tired beyond belief. The last race hadn't gone too well. There went the orphanage. Oh well, another day another dollar. There'd be plenty of time for those things later.

He paused in the foyer and frowned. He could've sworn he heard strains of piano music playing. No one in the family played the piano though. Hargreeves had told them that if any of them ever touched it he'd skin them alive. Anyway all of the straights were probably asleep, or in Kraken's case, out. Pulling the revolver from his pocket he walked with calculated ease into the study. He wasn't particularly surprised.

Cat sat at the piano seat plunking out notes with no particular grace or rhythm. She wasn't all there; he hadn't expected her to be. Casting cautious glances around the room for her siblings he was intrigued to find that they weren't there. Keeping the revolver out he leaned against a wall and waited.

After picking out a few more notes Cat turned and looked around at him. The look was almost glassy, like she didn't much care that he was there. .05 hadn't spent most of his life as a respected time assassin to get stared at like that.

"You got a problem or something?" he sneered.

"A cat may look at a king," she said dreamily as she pressed a few more keys, "I've read that in some book, but I don't remember where."

"Now you're quoting _Alice in Wonderland_?" he asked distastefully, "This is a waste of time if you're not going to say anything discernable."

The glassy look vanished from Cat's eyes and she shook her head.

"Sorry. I can't control the hallucinations," she explained as she got up, "But I'm actually just here with a message."

"If it's some sort of supreme showdown you want," he said coolly, "Then we're going to have to reschedule. The Hargreeves family is busy enough already, thank you very much."

"My family doesn't even know I'm here. And I'm not interested in a rematch. The message is nothing of the sort. It's actually for you. I doubt that it affects the others," she said, "My sister ran into a few friends of yours, they're looking for you."

.05 frowned.

"Friends?"

"They dress like cartoon characters," said Cat, waving her hand vaguely, "And they called themselves…what was it again….oh yes. Hazel and Cha-Cha."

.05's veins went cold. No, not now, not when he had everything under control! He should've known. There was no way he could've quit his old job and not have it come back to him. Or rather, for him. Especially due to the fact that he had completely sabotaged his last mission.

He'd need to run. That's right, he'd need to run and hide. Everyone was dead already if those two had been sent. He wouldn't let them capture him. He'd seen what they'd done to people once. He'd been a hardened assassin then, well versed in death. At the time he'd been under the impression that there wasn't an organ in the human body he hadn't seen. Hazel and Cha-Cha had proved him wrong. .05 had actually thrown up after the first few minutes.

Turning around he started heading towards the door. Then he frowned and paused.

"Not that I'm not grateful," he said, "but I'd also like to know why you'd want help me."

Turning around Cat looked off into the distance.

"I owe your family for not killing mine for the hey of it," she said softly, "Assisting you will pay my debt and I don't need to worry about any of you ever again."

"Whatever," shrugged .05 before taking off.

Cat stood where he had left her for a few minutes. Then she started walking up the upstairs slowly and deliberately. It wasn't really her fault for what had happened to the two sisters. In fact, Vanya had been shot by her own brother. Rumor though, Rumor had gotten her vocal chords sliced by Alchemist. Well, she couldn't help Rumor. Perhaps though, just perhaps, she could help Vanya.

Opening the door to her room Cat saw Vanya's still form. Cat hesitated. To do what she was about to do was probably a bad idea. She had never tried to do this sort of thing before. Lenore had told her about the complexities of the human mind. If Cat wasn't careful she could get trapped and lost forever in a maze of another person's thoughts and emotions. Yet she was willing to try. Taking out a small bottle, she took a deep breath.

.

.

.

"So, it's related?" asked Cha-Cha.

"Duh," Hazel said, "Girl with a weird signal goes in, .05's signal disappears. Definitely some connection there man. She might know where he is now."

"Yeah man but how're we-?"

"Dude, there she is!"

Cat walked out of the building, nervously pushing back some of her hair. With a small click of the switch five different lamps illuminated where she was. Quickly throwing her arms in front of her face, surprise came into her eyes as she noticed the odd prickling sensation in the back of her head. Five minutes later Cat's soul extension was unconscious on the ground.

"Like, how did that work?" Cha-Cha asked as he walked up to her, "She was transparent like _Casper_."

"Which one?" asked Hazel curiously, "The movie or the show?"

"The show."

"New or old."

"Old," said Cha-Cha, "The new one is like, a mockery of everything that _Casper _stands for. The new creators are total dweebs. Once we're done here we should get 'em."

"Oh yeah, totally agree with you man," grinned Hazel, "But HQ came up with this soul trapping device because they were reeeeaaaaaaallllly bored. Thought it might come in handy. Makes 'em kinda like, solid without 'em actually being there. They gave it to me before we left, just in case."

"How come you get all the good stuff?" pouted Cha-Cha, turning away from his partner and folding his arms.

"Aw man," said Hazel apologetically, "I'm sorry."

"I'm not talking to you."

"I'll let you be in charge of the torture," Hazel pleaded.

"You…you'd do that for me?" asked Cha-Cha excitedly.

"Anytime man."

"You're the best. Sorry about what I said about not talking to you."

"Naw, it's cool."

"No, really," said Cha-Cha, "Let me make it up to you. I'll carry ghost girl here."

"I would do it but she looks kinda heavy and I pulled my back muscle extracting that trucker's sternum the other day-" sighed Hazel.

"You shouldn't worry about it," Cha-Cha said, "She's really light."

"Anyway, thanks dude."

"No prob."


	6. Chapter 6

"-and we don't even have enough bags for the corpses!" Body exclaimed, "How are we gonna keep lying to the papers when there's a river of blood on the asphalt?!"

"Leave the press gang to me Body," dismissed Lupo.

An officer walked up and handed Lupo a bag.

"New teeth you ordered inspector-" he said.

"And for the love of God, take a serious interest in dental hygiene," he said as he snatched the bag from the officer.

The two of them continued walking down the hall to Lupo's office.

"There's a lot more to this," he said, "Usually cases of mutilation are sloppy and you can't tell the time of death because there's nothing left to judge it with. But this time it was with a freakish precision. Small bones were removed carefully. Like that sternum."

"Don't remind me," said Body, shuddering.

"I'm just saying that something's going down," Lupo said, "Now we have government hounds snooping around-"

Lupo opened the door to his office.

"-and you know how they feel about a couple of beats like us waving our heaters around. It's only a matter of time before they yank the plug on-"

"Lupo…"

Quickly Lupo yanked his revolver out of his coat pocket and fired at his desk.

"Are these all of the photos from the truck stop?" asked an unfazed Kraken.

"You're in my seat," said Lupo, narrowing his eyes.

"I've been on my feet all night," Kraken replied, "Hello body."

"How's your sister?" he asked cautiously.

"Despite not being able to speak she still manages to talk your ear off," he said.

"Vanya?" asked Body.

"Paralyzed amnesiac," he said bitterly as he rifled through the photos.

"How's your brother?" asked Lupo as he lit a cigarette.

"Still intolerable," Kraken said as he headed towards the window.

"Your other brother."

"Not the pale one," Body interjected.

"The **little** one."

Kraken paused for a minute as he looked through the window.

"You know?"

"Give me some credit Kraken," Lupo said, lighting a cigar.

Kraken sighed.

"I knew it wouldn't take long for you to figure out that our number five came back. To be honest he's the reason we were able to prevent the complete annihilation of the City. But something doesn't add up with him."

Tiredly he pushed the window open.

"He's deceptive and impulsive, he's way too good with a gun, and I'd bet my good eye he's a commie."

"He's been away for a long while," said Body, "how about we go pick the brat up and have a **'chat'**?"

Kraken shook his head.

"Lupo, you've been protecting this family for years, because you know what we do is right. But I don't think that you have to this time. These killings are random, like they did it because they felt like it. .05 would think it was a waste of time."

"All I'm asking is for some time to figure this out," he said as he climbed out of the window, "There's something big behind all of this. I just need to nail it down. Let me find him and I'll get the answers out of him."

"Fine," said Lupo irritably as he took a draught of his cigarette.

He hated getting on cases where the Umbrella Academy needed to get involved. While he'd managed to form a professional 'friendship' with Kraken he still disliked the realm of paranormal. They didn't really prep you for that during training.

"Why are you leaving through the window?" asked Body curiously.

"Because the cops give me the creeps," said Kraken as he lowered himself out, "I'm going home to clear my head…"

.

.

.

Cat's head was anything but clear. She watched the two men listlessly. She had absolutely no idea what they were talking about, except that it probably meant more pain.

"Dude," sighed Cha-Cha, "I don't think she knows where the target is. Let's just kill her and get it over yet."

"You're giving up to easy," frowned Hazel as he removed his bloodstained gloves and threw one to the floor, "She hasn't even started bleeding from the nose yet. She probably isn't even bleeding internally from three places. I've only broken three of her ribs. We've only been doing this for four hours. There's so much more to do! I mean, we've like, barely gotten started. You wouldn't have done this. You're going soft."

"How could you say that?" Cha-Cha cried, slamming his butcher's knife on the table angrily, "You know that I haven't!"

"I'm sorry," Hazel apologized, "I didn't mean it. You know I didn't."

"Yeah, well," Cha-Cha said as he got up, "You should, like, say what you mean."

"I meant you were just tired," soothed Hazel.

"I don't know man!" Cha-Cha sighed, "I'm sorry for being so moody. I just feel so sad all the time!"

Hazel frowned and looked at him. He smacked his forehead.

"How could I have been so blind!" he exclaimed, "I know what the problem is!"

"You do?" asked Cha-Cha.

"Yeah. I totally know what's wrong," he said, "It's that damn man at the diner's fault. I shouldn't have just shot him. I should've made him see his esophagus!"

"Dude, I'm so not following you," Cha-Cha said.

"Don't you see!" Hazel explained, "You haven't eaten any proper pie since that junk a few days ago! You've just had red vines and Thin Mints, but no pie! You're unbalanced. That's what's wrong! We need to get down to a supermarket or something and get you some of the good stuff. That's all this is."

"You're right!" exclaimed Cha-Cha, "I'm sorry I've been so moody lately."

"You can't help it," Hazel said comfortingly, "It's not your fault."

Turning away from them Cat decided that she needed to concentrate on herself. Her legs felt like lead; heavy and cold. That sensation had started about two hours ago. The two odd looking men had long since found a way to inflict more pain since then. Her legs were currently the least of her worries.

She had gotten control of her power at age six. Since then she had never been in more then what a paper cut gave. All her life she had never broken a bone. She hadn't even sprained an ankle. Even the bullet through the brain had been instantaneous and relatively painless.

The most common pain was the heroine that she put into her system, which she hadn't done in a long time. Her own body was starting to react from extreme withdrawal. Cold sweat had broken out on her forehead and her mouth was dry. She hardly noticed it from her other pain. What the men were putting her through was something much different though and had been a violent shock to her system.

The men ripped, cut, broken, and slashed her in so many terrible ways that she didn't even want to remember what had happened. All with those ridiculous cartoon masks on their faces. For the first time in her life she'd understood the meaning of the word 'agony'. It was a terrible definition. What was worse was that these men were obviously trained professionals. They knew just how much pain to inflict on her without killing her or knocking her out. Even if they did manage to knock her out then they would just wait until she woke up.

Cat had absolutely no idea where .05 was. Under that amount of pain anyone would've confessed to anything. If they'd told her to say that she was the Grand High Poobah of Canada then she'd say yes. Needless to say they had already found out that she had warned .05. They hadn't been particularly happy about that.

She wished Neil was there to tell her everything was going to be alright like he normally did. Cat wished that Alchemist was there to make her laugh somehow. Both of them were gone though. Oh, they'd probably be searching for her. She wasn't particularly hopeful for rescue though. She closed her eyes for a few minutes and thought about her lover and sister. At least they couldn't see what was happening.

That and the fact that she would die from being away from her body for too long were her only comforts. It couldn't go on much longer. All of it would only last for a few hours more. Yes, everything would be fine soon. She could almost see Reaper whispering that and stroking her hair as he always did. She let a small smile come to her lips.

"So that's the plan," nodded Cha-Cha, "We finish with her then we find some pie. Then we kill .05."

"Agreed," said Hazel, "But don't try to rush this. It's unprofessional man."


	7. Chapter 7

Rumor really didn't know what she thought about Vanya. Obviously she envied her for not remembering their childhoods. Of course, now it seemed that the two of them were getting thrown together more and more. Gradually she had the feeling that she was getting into a better relationship with her sister. What a surprise.

Claire had asked but she didn't need to know the real reason why Vanya was one color. Neither did Vanya for that matter. Rumor had been surprised that the two of them got on so well. Then again, Claire had declared her intention to be a nurse when she was older. She certainly did seem to have fun pushing Vanya around in her wheelchair. Not only that but she was purposely spending more time learning on how to read so she could understand her mother's scribblings.

In truth Claire was everything Rumor could've hoped for in a daughter. She was very accepting, shared her mother's interests, was well behaved, incredibly clever, and obviously idolized her mother. Rumor wasn't quite comfortable with the idolization, except for the fact that it meant that Claire liked her more then Patrick.

She was also easy to amuse. Give her a piece of string and she would be occupied for hours. Claire could do some amazing cat's cradle. Rumor had never had much of a taste of that sort of thing but Vanya seemed to be particularly good at it. It seemed to be helping her coordinate her movements.

Claire was also highly active and loved games. This meant that she liked the Hargreeves grounds. What wasn't to like for a child of six? They were spacious with many trees, like something out of a fairytale. Rumor reflected that Claire didn't know that the trees were actually the result of a mutated deciduous tree that had attacked the estate over twenty years ago, scattering its seed around. Later the seeds were de-mutanized and became harmless trees. She didn't need to know that though.

Not only was there all of that but Claire her only child. Perhaps that was why she felt like she couldn't leave her. Claire was one of the best things she had about the outside world. Now her little girl was stuck with a two-timing deadbeat. Well she wouldn't be for much longer if Rumor had her way. She was working tirelessly to fix the problem.

All of the work she was doing was taking its toll though. Rumor hadn't had a full night's sleep in over a week. Her days were generally busy, filling out reports or searching for the ever elusive Cains. She didn't have much time to herself now. Her hands had begun shaking almost uncontrollably from the stress and massive caffeine overdose. Perhaps Space had been right.

On that particular morning they were outside. Soon Claire would be going back to her father's house with that bottle blonde of his. Until then Rumor was trying to enjoy what little time she had with her daughter. Currently Claire was having trouble pushing Vanya's wheelchair up the hill. Even though she was struggling it was evident that she was having fun doing so. Vanya was covertly using the wheels to help. Suddenly they heard a loud crashing from inside the house. It was followed by the tinkling sound of broken porcelain.

"I'll be right back," she wrote as she quickly walked by a wide-eyed Claire and confused Vanya into the house.

"Take that back you son of a bitch!"

"Well, look who's back! It looks like you can get angry. How's it feel?"

Kraken and Spaceboy stood in the middle of the hall screaming at each other. Several tables were smashed, as well as a rather large Ming Dynasty vase.

"It feels like a strong desire to smash your face in. So what do you plan on doing about that? Stick me with your little knife?" snapped Space.

"I would if I didn't think you'd pop like a balloon and cover the walls in B.S.!" snarled Kraken.

"Quick with the wit Kraken, almost as quick as you are to turn on any one of your brothers or sisters!"

Writing furiously Rumor wrote down;

"Stop it! Claire's still here!"

Neither of them paid her any attention. Spaceboy gestured widely, and though she wasn't anywhere near him, Rumor flinched and her eye twitched at his sudden movement.

"You're so paranoid you probably think Mom is plotting to take over the world, or the milkman is an intergalactic assassin-" Spaceboy snarled, pointing a finger angrily at Kraken.

"Milkman got a D.U.I. six years ago, but the court ordered him to attend some meetings and a safe-driving course," said Kraken coolly, obviously unmoved by Space's hand being so close to his face, "Never did an extensive background check on Mom, but you raise an interesting question."

Space looked uncomprehendingly at Kraken.

"What the **hell** are you talking about?" he said, "Do you mind telling me? Because I have no idea what it is you're trying to do!"

"You have no idea what **anyone's **been doing!" growled Kraken, "You don't even know where .05 is! All you do is moon around Allison!"

"EXCUSE ME!?" Spaceboy shouted.

So now he was insulting her? That was it. Angrily Rumor moved forward, writing furiously but also shakily on her notepad.

"It's true," snapped Kraken, "Now when the world explodes what will you be doing? Just hanging around most likely. So tell me Spaceman, whose side are you on?"

Spluttering furiously Space moved forward. Very calmly Rumor put a restraining hand in front of him. Then she threw out the note she'd written to Kraken. Her hands were trembling uncontrollably. It wasn't from fear or anger, she just couldn't help it. She did need a rest.

"You're one to talk," the note said, "I know how much you're upstairs. You know, the doctors say that part of Vanya's problem is psychological. Do you think that means that she doesn't want to remember?"

For a moment all Kraken did was breath heavily and angrily. Rumor smiled triumphantly. Her triumph was short lived as Kraken abruptly grabbed the notepad from her hands. Calmly and deliberately he ripped it to shreds. Once he was done he threw the scraps onto the floor. They fell down slowly like snow.

"Got something to** say** about that?" Kraken snarled.

Anger flushed into her cheeks. How dare he bring that up? Almost immediately she thought about the scar across her throat. Oh, there was actually quite a lot that Rumor wanted to say. Most prominently was that from how angry he'd gotten it was obvious he'd contemplated it. Spaceboy probably had something slightly more physical in mind.

Neither of them did anything though. For at that moment Vanya was pushed in by a giggling Claire. They both stopped as they saw the scene before them.

"Mom?" Claire asked timidly.

Rumor tried to get some of the fury out of her face. Drawing a fake smile from somewhere she nodded as though it wasn't anything much. Space wasn't so good at that and ended up looking at the ceiling. She shot an expectant look at Kraken. She doubted that he'd be any better at faking normality then Space.

However Kraken wasn't looking at Claire. He was looking at Vanya. Out of the corner of her eye Rumor took in their expressions. There was something like desperation and anger in Kraken's face as Vanya stared uncomprehendingly at him. Then he glared once more at Rumor and Space before storming off. A door slammed in the background. Claire looked around, obviously confused and perhaps a touch frightened. Rumor pulled a scrap bit of paper out of her pocket and wrote;

"I think it's time to go Claire."


	8. Chapter 8

Vanya had wheeled her way back into her room and sat there, deep in thought. She felt like she was lost so much of the time in what was going on. Tiredly she buried her face in her hands. There was so much she didn't understand and there was a high probability that she would never be able to do so.

Sighing she moved the wheelchair so that she could get back in bed. As she did so she noticed a brightly colored bottle by her bed. It was small, perhaps only a few inches high. A stopper was put tightly on it, leaving Vanya to guess that it was from somewhere in the eighteen hundreds. The glass was a brightly colored red and she could see that it was filled with liquid. A small tag on it said; DRINK ME.

Frowning Vanya took it in her hands. She was sure that it had been there before, she just hadn't taken a close look at it. Vanya had just point-out never noticed it before. It wasn't as though someone would come in here and leave this without her noticing. Perhaps she hadn't thought it was important enough when she saw it. Turning it this way and that she thought about the tag. Was this medicine or something?

Cautiously she uncorked the bottle and sniffed the liquid. It smelt rather sweet. Still cautious she let a drop of the liquid drop on her tongue.

.

.

.

She was perhaps ten years old. Vanya had just given a recital for her father. Nervous couldn't even begin to describe it. As it turned out she had had reason to be. First she'd missed three notes and had apparently been slouching. Every time she made a mistake Hargreeves had said something sharp and rather derogatory. Finally he had thrown his hands up and said;

"I didn't think they made children as useless as you."

"It was just a few mistakes," she had whispered softly.

"Excuse me?" he'd asked, raising her eyebrows, "Can you not speak anymore? Is something **else** wrong with you? I don't know why I even bother. You could've at least saved me the trouble and died at birth."

"I hate you," she'd murmured.

"Speak up."

"I hate you!" she'd screamed.

Turning around, violin still in hand, she flung open the door and ran down the hallway.

"I HATE YOU!" she screamed again.

"Vanya?" asked, a voice (was that Pogo?) as she went down the halls.

"I. HATE. YOU!" she yelled, biting off the words for a final time as she slammed the door to her room behind her.

Her anger and sadness were something that she couldn't do anything about. Everything her father had said was true. She was useless. In sadness and desperations she smashed the violin against the floor. Wood splinters and strings broke and flew into the air. There was nothing she could do but mess everything up. That was what she was. She wasn't like her brothers and sisters. She wasn't special.

"**I DON'T BELONG HERE!**" she screamed at the top of her lungs.

Slowly she slunk to her knees.

"I don't belong here…" she whispered.

.

.

.

Vanya jerked back into the present, tears coursing down her eyes. Had her whole life been like that? Perhaps it had. Was she useful now? Could she do anything right, or for herself for that matter? The answer was no. Once again she was useless. She was a partially immobile amnesiac who couldn't do a thing.

A few more tears coursed down her cheeks as she put the bottle into the drawer of her nightstand. She couldn't do this. Perhaps she should be stronger and see drink the rest of the bottle, which seemed to be her memories. Yet the life that she had led didn't seem worth remembering.

.

.

.

After Rumor had returned Claire to Patrick the Umbrella Academy had lapsed into a sullen silence. Séance had absolutely no idea why, nor did he care. He didn't really care very much about anything anymore. Everything seemed so odd these days. Yet ever since Sententia he was starting to look at his family differently.

He thought about them all as he reclined on the couch. Kraken had always hated Spaceboy. Now the hate seemed to be something deeper though. It was like Kraken had almost nothing else to be angry at anymore so he was getting angrier at Space. Kraken was most likely also jealous that Space's relationship was going okay while his had gone down the drain.

What's more Spaceboy had been the workaholic in the family. Now it was Rumor. Her obsession was starting to show. She wasn't eating very much, getting skinnier then anything he'd ever seen. Her dark circles were beginning to match his. She was also getting more nervous, twitchier. She was even shaking more. It was almost alarming. Almost being the key word here.

.05 was missing. Spaceboy was losing his emotions and the fire in him. Everything was going downhill. He took another swig of gin.

"No feet on the couch," said Pogo as he walked into the room.

For once Séance obeyed him. Pogo looked surprised.

"Can I talk to you for a minute Space-monkey?" Séance asked woozily.

Pogo looked at him warily.

"Don't be shy," he said, "I'm not gonna puke on you or anything."

Not loosing the suspicious look Pogo sat down opposite him.

"What do you want to talk about Klaus?" he asked.

"Family's fallin' apart," sighed Séance, "Can't stand each other…can't even stomach the people I've saved…I'm supposed to save…from who knows what…I never thought that I'd say this…but I think I could do with some of your advice."

Looking him up and down Pogo said;

"You're drunk, aren't you?"

"Yes I am," replied Séance.

"Don't," said Pogo firmly, "That would stop contributing to the problem."

"You don't have any idea what to do, do you?" asked Séance.

"No I don't," replied Pogo, "Not since Sententia messed things up. I'm not brushing you off Klaus, but perhaps we could have this talk some other time. The security cameras are down and I have to fix them."

Séance shrugged as Pogo left the room. He spent awhile drinking and dozing on the couch. After half an hour he woke up to an angry tapping of a foot.

"I thought he'd never wake up."

Séance looked over to see Alchemist and Reaper standing over him.

"Don't worry," said Reaper as he gave a thin-lipped smile, "We're not going to kill you and we're not here to fight. But get your 'family' together. We need to talk to them."


	9. Chapter 9

_**A/N:** I'm going to be gone for a few days, so updates will be a little slower._

"Believe me," said Reaper nonchalantly as he ran his finger along the edge of his scythe, "This visit gives me as little pleasure as it gives you. But our need to be here is rather great."

The Umbrella Academy was assembled in the lounge. Everyone, even Vanya, were looking warily at their former adversaries. Space had his laser gun out and was watching their movements intently. He wasn't going to let them get away this time.

"Why, so you can try to kill us?" he snapped, "Is that what you want?"

"As I've told your odd drunken brother, we're not here to fight. And I didn't kill all those security cameras to get brushed off. The real reason why we're here is-" started Reaper.

"Where's my sister you sons of bitches?" Alchemist asked pleasantly a she turned a book end into a rather sleek semi-automatic.

Space couldn't have heard her right.

"Um, isn't she dead or something?" Séance asked, voicing Space's thoughts.

"One of them is," Reaper said through gritted teeth, "But Ghost survived and came down to your house about a day ago. Now she hasn't returned back to her body but it's periodically going into violent convulsions. Something, or someone, is putting her through quite a lot of pain. It is entirely possible for her to die if she's away from her body for a few more hours. Now I want you to tell me where she is."

"We don't know," said Space tersely, "And right now I'm actually quite ready to put both of you behind bars again."

Reaper and Alchemist laughed, but it didn't reach their eyes.

"Ghost came here to do your brother, .05, a favor," continued Reaper, "Now she's missing. Where is she?"

".05 disappeared," said Space, "I wonder, would it have anything to do with Ghost coming?"

"I don't think that he'd be scared of little miss Cheshire Cat," said Séance.

"Maybe she told him something he didn't want to hear," Kraken observed.

Reaper shrugged and got up.

"I don't particularly care what she told him," he said, "I want to know where she is. **Now.**"

"I don't know where you've been for the past five minutes," snapped Kraken, "But I'm quite sure you already know that we don't know where either of our siblings are."

"I'm asking for the last time," Reaper said, his voice getting more angry.

".05 disappeared a few days ago," Vanya said quietly.

Alchemist shot her a glare.

"That wasn't what he asked," she snapped, "Bitch."

Vanya looked at her with uncomprehending eyes. For a moment Alchemist stared at her. Then she nodded.

"That's right," she said, "You lost your memory. So you can't remember that you killed Arkady and Helene, bitch."

"Shut up," growled Kraken.

Cocking her head Alchemist said;

"Geez, you're pro-tect-tive of your girlfriend."

Vanya looked from Alchemist to Kraken hurriedly. There seemed to be a kind of desperate question in her eyes.

"What?" Alchemist grinned, "You didn't tell her that you were screwing each other? Well that's stupid."

Kraken stared resolutely ahead like he would like nothing more then to smash Alchemist's face in. Stepping in quickly Space said;

"We really have no idea where our brother or Ghost is. That's the truth."

"Fine," Reaper sighed, "Then you'll just have to help us find her."

For awhile no one said anything. Then a snort came from Kraken and Séance burst into laughter. Rumor hid a smile and Space raised his eyebrows.

"Last I remember," he said, "You were trying to kill us. Why should we help you with anything?"

"You could find out where your brother is," volunteered Alchemist.

"Not enough incentive," Space answered, "Now if you would kindly-"

"Wait," Reaper interrupted with fire in his eyes, "I can give you a full-proof reason why you should help us."

Alchemist grinned broadly and took what looked like a portable radio out of her pocket.

"You're going to love it," she cooed.

A fizzing sound came from the radio. Then a small voice came over, loud and clear;

"I wanna go home!"

Space felt the blood chill in his veins. He recognized that voice. He'd never heard it so scared though. He'd heard it laughing and giggling up and down the halls. It was Claire.

"I think that's all they need to hear," said Reaper.

Alchemist grinned and switched off the walkie-talkie.

Rage and fear were flooding Rumor's face as she wrote down;

"What the hell did you do to my daughter!?"

"Nothing," Reaper replied.

"Yet," Alchemist added.

"Yet?" asked Space, trying hard not to lose his temper.

"Have you seen the first _Saw_ movie?" asked Alchemist gleefully.

"Let me handle this," Reaper interrupted, "Now in that movie they had a timed headpiece that ripped your jaw off, killing you. Alchemist really loved those movies. She came up with the idea of building a headpiece that did something similar, instead it ripped out your brain. Keep that information for a few minutes. Now it wasn't too difficult to figure out if you had any relations or friends outside of your little Academy. Also, my sister here has a way with children; they like her 'magic tricks'. So it wasn't hard to get your daughter to come with us. I don't think she much likes Alchemist's replication of that contraption I mentioned earlier though. It was a little over-the-top, I'll admit that. But Alchemist always did like theatricality."

"Now," continued Reaper, "I have a detonator to the machine somewhere. You're going to help us look for our sister. Any funny business with either of us and your daughter here is going to be missing the control center for her nervous system. At the end of this, if we're successful, we'll give her back to you. Understand?"

"You wouldn't kill her," Rumor wrote with an almost desperate note.

"Wouldn't I?" shrugged Reaper, "You have to understand that the only thing that Alchemist and I have in this world are the other Cains. You obliterated most of our world when you killed two of my siblings. Now my world consists of my sister and my lover. And now my lover's missing. Half of Alchemist and my world has been ripped away. Nothing else matters. We want it back, and we want it back **now**. For her I'd kill little Claire seven times over in ways much more terrible then what I'm suggesting now."

Space leapt forward and slammed Reaper into the opposing wall. Reaper struggled for a few seconds before Alchemist hissed;

"I have a detonator too. So I'd appreciate it if you'd let go of my brother."

Roughly Space let go. Reaper rolled his shoulder back thoughtfully.

"I didn't think you'd be so stupid," he said, "It's much more beneficial if we can figure something out together. Not like you have much of a choice anyway."

A guttural growl came from deep inside Kraken's throat. Rumor looked like she was lost and Spaceboy pointed an angry finger at Reaper.

"You're insane," Spaceboy snarled.

"Most likely," Reaper shrugged, "But you can't find it comforting to know that your niece's life is in the hands of a madman."


	10. Chapter 10

Alchemist was going through .05's room. Someone had to do it, and seeing how Reaper had gone off with some of the Umbrella brats it was up to her. Well, she wasn't bitter at him or anything. What he was doing was fine seeing as Cat needed him right now. That meant that she was left to do investigating that the Hargreeves probably wouldn't normally let her do.

They had actually been pretty cooperative so far. After realizing that their niece's life was in danger they'd become valuable allies. Reaper had been right about them. When they realized that Cat hadn't come back to her body she had suggested going to the mansion and killing them all. Well, that was why Reaper was in charge of planning and she was in charge of executing and following orders.

Alchemist was pretty good at following orders, even if she didn't like them. That was what had gotten her paired up with the cranky violent one, Kraken. As soon as they came back she would have to spend the whole night searching for her sister with him. Lovely.

That meant that she had to do this now. It wasn't a particularly good job to be doing. First of all the place looked like a hospital. Alchemist had been to several morgues when she was five so now all hospitals gave her the creeps. The second reason was more pressing and important in her mind. This reason had to do with the smell. The bottom line; that boy did not do his laundry.

Irritably she pushed his bed over. Nothing was under there besides a few magazines. (Like _Soldier of Fortune, Arms and Armourments, _etc.) Striking out with her fist at the nightstand she growled in frustration. She wasn't making the progress that she wanted to right now. At this very moment her sister could be dying and she was going through some psycho violent brat's dirty laundry.

Alchemist was starting to hate the Academy more and more for all the fact that they were working with them right now. What morons, what arrogant, self-righteous, pretentious, and color coordinated fools. Furthermore what was up with them, having a name like that? The Umbrella Academy? Did they have something for _Mary Poppins _or something? Sighing angrily she started to stalk out of the room.Then she noticed the clasp box.

It was old and probably no bigger than the palm of her hand. Opening she saw a monocle. It looked like the one .05 had been playing with during Sententia. Frowning she took it out of the box. There wasn't anything unusual about it. Yet she remembered what he said when he put it on. He saw exactly what had happened to his sister. Perhaps it was special or something. Shrugging she put it in front of her eye.

After a few minutes she took it off.

"Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious," she laughed.

.

.

.

"What are you doing?" Spaceboy said.

Kraken, Space, and Séance were all following Reaper out onto the grounds of the estate. Rumor had volunteered to put Vanya back into her room and get a few pieces of machinery. As reluctant as anyone was to leave them in the house with Alchemist, Reaper had insisted that they come with him before splitting off and starting the search. In truth Séance didn't really have any idea of what was going on. Like he always did, Séance was just going with it.

"Patience Dr. Darwin," replied Reaper dismissively, "There's just something that I need to do before we start."

As he said that he pulled back the door to a large van. Séance craned his neck over Reaper's shoulder to see what was going on. Ghost's body was stretched out in the back seat, twitching slightly from time to time. As soon as the fading sunset light hit her she started thrashing as though she were in pain. Quickly Reaper moved and restrained her for a few minutes.

"So you're trying to kill Claire for that?" asked Séance, bored.

"I refuse to see someone else I care about die," snapped Reaper as Ghost's body calmed down, though it still twitched occasionally, "If you haven't noticed our family is already small enough as it is. No one else is going to die."

"And you want to kill Claire? Has it occurred to you that there are people who care about her, maybe people feel the same way you do about Ghost for her?" asked Space angrily.

"Like I said," he replied as he removed his restraining hands from Ghost, "People **I **care about. I don't give a shit about Claire or any other person on this planet. That's why **you're **the superheroes and not me."

Spaceboy gave him a glare that would've made lesser mortals spontaneously burst into flames. Frankly Séance was impressed by the fact that Reaper didn't bat an eye. All he did was calmly take a syringe out of his pocket.

"Now," he said as he turned to Séance, "I'd like some of your heroine for a moment."

"What?" asked Séance, offended.

That sent Reaper down several points on his cool-o-meter.

"I need some for this," said Reaper, "We're out and you're obviously on it. I can recognize the signs. Don't think I haven't seen the puncture marks along the underside of your arm. With skin like that I'm surprised that the rest of your family hasn't noticed. Someone at your level of addiction probably keeps drugs on his person all the time. Right now I need some and you've got it. Now you should give it to me now."

No way was he going to part with any of his drugs. Wild horses couldn't drag them out of him. They had actually tried. A refusal flew to his lips. He was quickly silenced from a look from his two brothers. They looked like they'd rip of his head if they were given the slightest provocation. Sighing he took a vial out of his pocket.

"Be careful with this," said Séance as Reaper snatched it up, "That vial cost five hundred dollars."

"I'll keep that in mind," Reaper said smoothly.

Quickly he put it into the syringe. With equal speed he slipped it under Ghost's skin. The twitching soon stopped.

"You're giving her heroine?" said Kraken, disgusted.

"She needs it," said Reaper, "Besides, ask your pale brother. If she's being hurt, it's about the best thing for her."

Everyone looked at Séance. For once he was the one in the know. He grinned internally. Take that everyone else!

"In certain doses it can relieve pain," he shrugged, pleased by the attention, "She might also have some hallucinations. In other words it'll also take away her sense of where she is."

"That might be a good thing," said Reaper, stroking her hair.


	11. Chapter 11

There was a lot of background noise. The odd men had put some sort of children's show on. It wasn't a particularly big TV and the reception wasn't too good. Her blood had also spattered across it making it hard to see. Normally she wouldn't pay it much attention, but there was nothing else to look at. It looked weird, all of those bright colors moving around in front of her. All the colors of the rainbow flitted across her field of vision. She watched each character hitting the other with hammers.

Cat was starting to fear that she was losing her mind. The pain coupled with her lack of heroine and being apart from her body for so long was making her doubt her own senses. She knew that she hadn't always been the most mentally stable person. Yet, she had never really considered the possibility that she was seeing anything other then what was real. Well, other than the scenes from _Alice in Wonderland. _At least she **knew** that those were hallucinations.

It appeared that the two men were playing some sort of poker game. With all of the noise it was difficult to tell what exactly it was. They were betting something that she didn't quite seem to be able to understand either. She saw the one called Hazel slam his cards down triumphantly. Cha-Cha scowled but picked up a baseball bat and handed it to his compatriot. Cat realized then that they had been competing to see who was going to give it a go next.

She didn't really care. A few hours ago Cat had started to feel that she had become numb to pain. Hazel pulled the baseball bat back. Rather quickly she heard a sharp snap. Well, she didn't hear it as much as feel it. There went the theory about not being able to feel anything. The pain was still as terrible as it was when they had started hours ago, not lessened at all by the course of time.

Of course she screamed when it happened. That was the natural reaction to this kind of pain. It came out rough and hoarse. The rush of air grated on the agitated tissues of her throat. Yet, she couldn't help screaming. Screaming was the only thing that she could do. From how soft it came out Cat knew that soon she wouldn't even be able to do that anymore.

"She is sooooo going to die soon," Cha-Cha said tiredly, "Let's get this over with so I can go and get some pie."

"Dude, there's something called professionalism. Now, are you sure you don't know anything else?" asked Hazel.

His question didn't quite process into her mind. All around her the world was starting to distort and fade. She saw the cartoon characters start to run together in front of her. It was like a rainbow sherbet glazed over with blood. Even if she had been withholding something she wouldn't have been able to tell it at that point.

Once again her pain started to slowly subside. Her mind was becoming fuzzy. Right now she felt like she did when she had bottled Vanya's memories sans the splitting headache. There was only the sense of unreality and haziness. It felt rather pleasant. In all truth it actually felt like someone had given her heroine. She knew that couldn't be possible though.

The only other answer was painfully clear. Cat was going to die. Well, she'd figured that out hours ago. Now she just knew that it would be happening rather soon. Yet as much as she had welcomed it she was also kind of frightened. Cat didn't feel ready to leave the world quite yet.

Her siblings would mourn her. That made her feel like crying. She would miss them. They had all always been close. All of them had grouped together out of self defense and now she found it difficult to be without them. Cat needed Alchemist as much as she needed her. Reaper, Reaper needed her in an entirely different way. And she needed him back. A kind of heaviness came over her body.

So this was how death was then. If it was then it didn't seem bad. As a matter of fact, dying seemed almost soothing.

"I asked you a question," Hazel frowned.

Once again his words didn't quite register. The colors that had started to swirl around became softer. Soon afterwards the swirls started moving into familiar shapes. The perpetual gloom of the room subsided. Light poured in and at first she squinted. When her eyes adjusted to the light she blinked.

Cat was in a rose garden. Well, rose garden wasn't the right word for it. It was more like a hedge maze where roses had been made to grow on the leafy walls. The sun shone warmly on her hair and the sky didn't have a cloud in it. A flamingo walked casually by her, chased by what looked like a Jack from a deck of cards.

Off in the distance she could hear sounds of a croquet game. Cat wasn't quite sure how she knew that was what they were playing though. A loud crack issued through the air and she heard a clink. Apparently someone had had a particularly good shot. Almost immediately after this she heard a faint cry of;

"Off with her head!"

Cat smiled as she took in the Queen of Hearts garden. If she was dead then this was heaven. All it needed was her family there. Arkady and Helene had to be around here somewhere. She always knew that Helene would love Wonderland. She turned around and tried to look for them.

As she turned around she was shocked to see Hazel's face. Yet it was becoming less scary with each passing second. His face was starting to distort and change. In no time at all it had turned into the friendly face of a portly middle-aged woman.

"'Tis so," said the Hazel, now the Duchess, "And the moral is that 'tis love, 'tis love that makes the world go round."

"Somebody said that it's done by everyone minding their own business," Cat frowned.

"Ah," smiled the Duchess, "Well it means much the same thing."


	12. Chapter 12

Vanya was tired and confused. Only a few short hours ago she had been playing with her niece on the grounds. Now her niece was captured and their enemies wanted their help to find their sister. Everything was a tangled web. The day had gone from normal and relaxing to out of this world craziness in a very short time. Her head spun a little as she thought about it. All she really wanted to do was curl up in bed somewhere.

She wasn't the only one feeling this way by the looks of things. Everyone was looking slightly disheveled and disorganized. When the Hargreeves boys had come back into the house they had found out that Alchemist had taken off, leaving only a note in her place. It said;

"Investigating a new lead. Don't wait up. XXOOX Alchemist."

Reaper had simply shrugged at it.

"My sister does that. But the search continues. Let's have the mobile and useful ones pair off with each other," he said, "Which excludes your sisters. You all have five minutes to get yourselves together."

A few of them moved off. It was obvious that Rumor wanted to be included in something that concerned her daughter as heavily as this did. Space was calmly trying to reassure her that he would get her back. Séance wandered up and down the hall, swaying slightly.

As for herself Vanya was unsure of what to do. For a minute she contemplated finding Pogo and telling him what was happening. The minute this idea entered her mind she saw Kraken detach himself from the rest of the group. Very quickly Vanya made the decision to go after him.

It wasn't that simple though. He was moving down the hallway fast, a lot faster then she could go. Her arms weren't anywhere near that strong. Even if she did have someone helping her she probably wouldn't be able to keep up with his long strides. As he turned corner after corner she found herself getting more and more frustrated. Finally, her frustration reaching a boiling point she yelled;

"Diego!"

Kraken continued walking. For a minute she didn't think that he was going to stop. She prepared to yell again. Then to her surprise he stopped and faced her.

"What?" he growled.

Slightly taken back by his response she stopped for a minute. Finding her determination she caught up with him and looked him in the eye as near as she could in a wheelchair.

"Was what Alchemist said true?" she asked.

Kraken didn't say anything. He just looked at the ceiling.

"Were we…" she started, finding that the words stuck in her throat a little, "Were we together?"

Once again he stared at the ceiling.

"Diego…." She started with a hint of reproach.

At length he said;

"It doesn't matter."

"Yes it does!" she said, "It matters to me."

"Why should it?" he asked, still not looking at her, "It's not like you can remember it anyway."

"I want to remember!" she burst out.

Thinking back to the bottled memory she amended her statement.

"I want to know! Wouldn't you hate having chunks of your life ripped away from you for reasons that you can't even remember? With me it's not even chunks, it's my whole life! That's thirty years that I can't remember! I want to know about them!"

Once more he didn't say anything for awhile. Finally he asked;

"Do you want to remember me?"

For a minute she didn't understand the question. What was he asking? She felt a little guilty. Did he know about the bottle and the memories that she had rejected? No, he couldn't have. She had hidden it far to well. Fumbling for a reply she let a few incoherent syllables drift past her lips.

"Look at me Vanya," he said, "Do you want to remember me?"

She stopped talking and looked at his eyes. It was as though with every syllable, with every look she was cutting him to the quick. Instead of blood though, he seemed to be bleeding mixed feelings. Pain in huge waves washed over his eyes. She could very easily drown in the well of pain she saw there.

There was something else there though, something that she hadn't seen before. There was something resembling weakness, but not in the typical sense. It was like he was standing there exposed and open to her. It wasn't alone. Love was in his eyes too. It was love that had mixed with the pain to give birth to heartache.

Very slowly he started to lift his hand. His forefinger brushed her cheek, very lightly. As soon as he touched her cheek she shivered slightly. She realized then that this was actually the first time they had touched in all the months that she had been awake. Yet despite her shivering his touch didn't feel odd. It felt familiar, good and even comforting.

"Do you?" he whispered.

Once again Vanya stammered over her words, not quite understanding what was happening or even managing to take it in. Suddenly the look of vulnerability and pain turned into one of anger.

"Never mind. I don't have time for this right now," he said brusquely.

"No," she said, "Don't-"

Before she could say anything more he removed his hand and continued walking down the hall. Her hands hung limply by her and she didn't even bother to lift them. Vanya didn't have the strength to go after him anymore. She felt both mentally and physically exhausted by what had just passed. For awhile she just sat in the hallway and listened to his disappearing footsteps.

Then she looked up with determination. Forcefully she started to push herself down the hall. She had hurt someone who had obviously been very important to her. That look wasn't just one of some fling that had turned out bad in the end. He had been, and it appeared still was, in love with her.

From her reaction to the touch she had the feeling that she had felt the same. Yet she had forgotten all of this in her accident and had been hurting him by her ignorance. She could've very well continued to hurt him if not for tonight. For she knew that that bottle she had hidden was the answer to the question he had asked her. And the answer was yes.


	13. Chapter 13

"What the hell is she talking about?" asked Cha-Cha.

"What the hell **are **you talking about?" Hazel asked as he drew away.

The two of them looked at Cat with a mixture of shock and disgust. Five minutes ago it looked like she was going to die any minute. Now she had some sort of internal dialogue or something going on with herself that they couldn't make heads or tails of. So far she had been going at it for about ten minutes now. Cat frowned at their question.

"If you're going to turn into a pig my dear," she said seriously, "I'll have nothing more to do with you."

As she said so she turned away, practically pouting. Cha-Cha and Hazel turned and stared at each other.

"With like, all our years of experience and all, I think that we can definitely agree that this is a new one," Hazel said.

"Totally. I think we need to put this one in the books," replied Cha-Cha.

He took what looked like an address book out of his pocket as well as a pen. He flipped through it absently.

"Should it be under D for delirium or H for hallucination?" he asked.

"I think D would be best," advised Hazel.

Cha-Cha uncapped the pen and started to write it down. Suddenly he stopped and laughed.

"What is it?" asked Hazel curiously.

"I just saw the record of that guy who started thinking he was the President of the Lollipop international tasters association," Cha-Cha laughed.

"Dude," said Hazel, "That's because he **was **President of the Lollipop international tasters association. Remember? He made that cherry flavor that wasn't cherry enough."

"Oh. I remember now. I think I might've gotten him mixed up with-"

Just then Hazel's cell phone started to ring. He held up a hand to stop Cha-Cha and picked it up.

"Hell-o?" Hazel said.

He listened for a few minutes.

"Dude," he said to Cha-Cha, "It's the boss."

"Ooooooohhhhhh," said Cha-Cha in mock fear as he started to write in his book.

Hazel listened and nodded occasionally.

"Yeah," he said, "I got a lead but I think the trail's gone cold. I thought it was going to work out, but it's kind of gone a bit weird."

Once more Hazel listened.

"I'd define weird as she's started to like, talk gibberish. Like not the normal gibberish. Like freaky gibberish. So I was gonna off her in a few seconds…"

He let out a frustrated breath as he listened to the person on the other end of the phone. Cha-Cha cocked his head at his partner's obvious displeasure.

"I thought you said…?" he said.

Listening for a few minutes more he shrugged.

"You're the boss."

He paused for a minute before rolling his eyes and saying;

"It simply must be done."

Almost immediately afterwards hung up.

"Turns out the mission's changed," he said, "He says that .05 is going to be taken care of. Now he just wants us to kill the Umbrella Academy. Except .05 of course."

"Why's that?" frowned Cha-Cha.

"Dunno," Hazel shrugged again, "Just wants us to do it. You know, 'It simply must be done' and all that. Forgot he makes us say that at the end of every phone call. Maybe they should like, change it."

"Perhaps, 'The cookies must be baked'," suggested Cha-Cha.

"Now that's one I can sink my teeth into," Hazel smiled, "But he kinda wants this done relatively quickly. We've got this reputation to live up to and all."

"I can dig that," said Cha-Cha as he pulled out a revolver, "Let me just take out the trash, 'kay?"

"He said we can't do that either."

"Huh?" Cha-Cha asked, confused and disappointed.

"Sorry man," he said as he put a hand on his shoulder, "He said yadayadayada she might be useful yadayadayada Cains yadyayadyada understand the mission's changeability yadayadayada bargaining chip. Not like chocolate chips either. He wants us to give her to him in, like, an hour."

Disappointed Cha-Cha put the gun down.

"But we haven't killed anyone in **hours**," he whined, "Doesn't he guess that we have needs?"

Hazel moved forward and put a comforting hand on his friend's shoulder.

"Hey, we get to kill five people real soon. That'll be an okay tally for tonight. I mean, obviously it's not our best one ever, but it's reasonable. It'll more than make up for losing out on the freaky girl here."Let's go," Hazel said.

"What about her?" he asked, gesturing to Cat, "Shouldn't one of us stay here to watch her or something?"

Cocking his head Hazel gave Cat a quick once over.

"Nah. It's not like she's gonna walk away with her bones looking like that," observed Hazel.

"Good point."


	14. Chapter 14

Up the stairs she went, faster and faster. This was fun, like it was part of some action-thriller spy movie. She always thought she'd be good in those. Fuck Bond girls. In any movie she was in she would be the star. She could beat that little English boy to a pulp any day anyhow. Well, more on that later. Right now time was of the essence. Quickly she spotted the door to the room that the manager said that a little boy with a hell of a lot of cash had rented. She tried the door. Locked.

Not particularly surprised she prepared herself to make a dramatic entrance.

"HIYA!"

With a shattering of wood and metal the door to .05's room was kicked open. He stared at the intruder with a mixture of shock and disbelief.

"How did you find me?"

"You left your weird 3D eye glass in your room," Alchemist said as she tossed it to him, "It's cool, but freaky."

He glared at the monocle for a moment before directing his glare to her.

"What do you want?" he snapped.

"Well," she said, "Do you know where my sister is?"

.05 rolled his eyes.

"Why do you lose your siblings and bother **me** about it?"

"You were the last one who saw her," said Alchemist, still smiling, "And no funny business or your niece gets a rather important organ ripped out. Savvy?"

"I don't give a damn about my niece," frowned .05, "Why should I?"

Alchemist cocked her head. She looked him up and down appraisingly.

"Your family really sucks," she said, "I mean, do you care at **all** about each other? Even a little bit?"

.05 rolled his eyes and turned around in his chair so that he could face her.

"You're one to talk," he said, "You care about each other a little too much if you know what I mean."

"Frankly I don't," she said, crossing her arms.

"The hell you don't," snorted .05, "If you ask me it's rather creepy."

Looking at her clock Alchemist realized that she had wasted two hours. Irritably she said;

"I don't have time to mince words about this. Now tell me whether or not you know where my sister is. You might not care about your niece, but I'm pretty sure that you're a selfish bastard. So do keep in mind that I can tell whoever I come across where you are, even if they do have masks like silly little cartoon characters."

Glaring coldly at her .05 said;

"I haven't seen her since she came and told me those freaks were coming after me."

"You sure?"

"Yes."

"Well then," she said, "That's that."

"Really?" he asked, "You just broke open the door for that?"

"Nope!" she said, popping the p, "I was going to ask you if you have any info at all that can help. It'd be grand if you did."

Getting up .05 said;

"Right now I think I'd do **anything **to get you away from me," he said, "So what would you consider useful?"

Alchemist considered for a minute.

"Well, to be honest, I suppose that you'd best just tell me everything."

.

.

.

Claire was terribly and horribly scared. She had absolutely no idea where she was. Her arms had been tied behind her and her legs had been tied to the chair. Her head was incased in a monstrous contraption with interlocking wires. There was no noise at all in the silent outpost, somehow making it scarier. Swallowing hard Claire tried to wake-up out of her nightmare. It wasn't working.

That morning she had gone to school, just like she always had. She'd gotten into her uniform and buckled her shoes. Her hair and teeth had been brushed thoroughly. Claire remembered that she had looked at herself carefully. Then she'd picked up her brush and tried to curl her bangs a bit. It didn't really work, but it did make them look a tad more bouncy.

Her class had gone to the library the day before. When she was there she had found an old picture of her mother when she was a younger in a book called; _The Protectors of the Law_. It was a book for older children. Only fifth graders could check it out. Claire had just lied to the librarian and told her that she was getting it for her sister. Who would think that the cute little kid with the winning smile was lying? Certainly not the librarian, so Claire had the book now.

She had it opened to the chapter entitled_; The Umbrella Academy_. It was a rather old book and had a picture of the team when they were children. She'd examined the picture intently. It had been fun trying to figure out which was which. Claire hadn't been able to find Aunt Vanya in the picture. Uncle Space had been especially hard to , she wasn't supposed to call him Uncle anymore. That was what she took away from the discussion she'd had with her mother a week before. Her mother had been very explicit in explaining 'adoption'. That meant they weren't really brother and sister so it was okay for them to kiss and stuff. It hadn't been too hard to wrap her head around. Apparently her mother had been very relieved about that for some reason.

Her mother hadn't been hard to find in the picture. From it she could deduce that her mother had curled her bangs as a child. Claire looked at her reflection with satisfaction. Now she looked quite like her mother in that old picture. Oh, the uniform was different and she wasn't wearing a mask, but it was still alright. Her hair was the same color and all. She was going to be just like her mother when she was older, except she was going to be a nurse, or a doctor.

Seeing the time she grabbed her backpack and ran down the stairs.

"Goodbye!" she'd called.

"Lock the door behind you!" her father had called back.

She went out the door quickly and closed the door behind her. Standing on her tip-toes she had managed to turn the key in the lock. Sighing she put it back into her pocket and walk to the bus stop. In the old days her mother would walk her to the bus stop. Now she went by herself. Sadly she scuffed the sidewalk with her foot.

"Oh, are you upset?"

Claire had turned around to see a kindly smiling woman about her mother's age. She had taken a cautious step backwards.

"Mama says I'm not supposed to talk to strangers," she said.

"I can see how that would be bad," frowned the woman before brightening, "But I know your mother! You're Allison Hargreeves's girl right?"

Nodding Claire had taken a small step forwards. Yet, she wasn't entirely convinced.

"I can tell," she said, "You look just like her."

Smiling proudly Claire decided that this woman probably was friends with her mother or something.

"There's a smile," the woman had said, "Now here's a way to get an even bigger one."

The woman took a wallet out of her pocket.

"Just a wallet," said the woman, "Just a normal wallet. Now, poof!"

The wallet turned into a stuffed teddy bear. Claire had clapped her hands excitedly. The woman nodded as though she were pleased with herself. Looking down Claire once again saw the time.

"I'm sorry, but I can't be late for school!"

Turning around Claire had run into a solid wall. Well, what had felt like a solid wall. She looked up to see a man in a black hoodie staring down at her. His skin was pale like her Uncle Klaus's and he had the dark circles under his eyes. Unlike her Uncle though, his eyes were creepy. Nervously Claire took a step back.

Suddenly his hand had shot out with a cloth. He grabbed her shoulder and shoved it over her mouth. It was wet, damp with a funny smelling liquid. She struggled but she couldn't get out of the man's strong grip. After a few minutes everything started to go black. Just before she passed out she heard;

"Geez Reaper, kids are stupid."

Claire did feel stupid. She was scared and stupid and now she was crying. It was getting cold and shadows seemed to be everywhere. From a window she could see that the sun was starting to set in the sky. The lamp in the room wasn't on, so the light would be gone soon. She didn't know when the light would go completely. There was no telling when those weird people would come back either.

Claire had never really contemplated dying before. Oh, she'd done it in the childish way that kids sometimes do. Yet, she had never been serious in her contemplations. As the sun slipped behind the sky there was only one thought in her mind; she wanted her mother.


	15. Chapter 15

"-so I'm thinking that we should just call it a night," Séance said.

Spaceboy glared at him. Séance shrugged back at him. The two of them had been paired off earlier in the night. It had been done with straws, making it an impartial system. All right, so maybe Séance had used his powers just a little bit to make sure he didn't get stuck with Reaper. Where was the harm in that though?

Actually, the harm was that Kraken had ended up being paired off with Reaper. For some reason he was already in a foul mood. In truth Séance actually felt kind of sorry for him, Reaper that is. He could just imagine what bundles of laughter they'd be going through right now. In truth he actually wished he was there to see it.

Space and he had been combing the city for any sign of, well, anything really for hours. It was both exhausting and monotonous. It wasn't anyway for someone like him to be spending his time. He wanted to go home and get some sleep. Séance was too tired at the moment to do anything else. Admittedly he was probably just lazy. Once more Space resumed his glare.

"We've got only hours to rescue our niece," he seethed, "And you're saying that we should 'call it a night'?"

"Yup."

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Space exploded.

"Whoa," said Séance, "Calm down there. Don't have a cow or anything. But I suppose that I can take this as a sign that you don't agree with me?"

"NO!"

"Alright then," Séance said, "Then can I at least pop down and get some caffeine? There's a 7'11 there."

"Yes, fine, whatever!" snapped Spaceboy, "But I expect you to be back here in ten minutes. You go that?"

"Yeah yeah," said Séance as he levitated downwards, "Keep your hat on."

He was starting to wish he had just gotten himself so hyped up on drugs that they would've thought him more useful staying at home. Or he could've gotten drunk. These days though, he seemed to be building up some sort of immunity to the drug's effects. That really sucked because that meant that he was getting less of a buzz out of them these past few weeks.

He should've just found a way to swap places with Rumor. She actually wanted to go on this stupid little expedition. Maybe he could've even switched places with Vanya or something. He would've been more then happy with the idea of staying home like they were doing now. Fate seemed to have some other ideas though.

He started to walk along the south side of the building. It was actually a rather large 7'll for the city and he was wishing he had levitated down to the other side instead. He heard some sniggering and then some snippets of conversation.

"He's got no shoes on."

"Makes him look like some kind of hippie."

"Is he a hippie?"

"Dunno. Why don't you ask him?"

"You a hippie?"

He could assume that the last question was directed at him. After all, there wasn't anyone else there. Indeed, the description did seem to match him. Séance hadn't worn shoes in about twenty years. Except for that time in Czechoslovakia, and he didn't want to think about that at the moment.

He sighed. It was probably just the regular drunks. If you talked to them then they just got more confident.

"And what's with the shirt?" the other voice called, "you think you're in Fiji?"

He wasn't about to let that one go.

"It's like being on vacation," he answered back irritably, "All of the time."

Séance hadn't even seen them but continued to walk on. He was mildly surprised when one of them called out happily;

"**Permanent vacation**!"

He didn't even really feel the bullets that ripped through his skull. He fell forward to the pavement, his blood pooling around him. Another spray of bullets ripped through his back despite the fact that he was already dead.

"You're an animal Cha-Cha…"

"Thanks," Cha-Cha beamed.

.

.

.

Ten minutes later Space went down to look for him. If Séance had been shirking his duties then he was about to get an earful. Normally he couldn't care less about what Séance was doing with his life. Now there was an emergency though. Claire could end up dead and Séance would be complaining of the inconvenience he had been put through. What should've been a code red was a joke for him.

Claire was Rumor's daughter. The only thing that made him slightly sad was that Claire wasn't Rumor and **his** daughter. Of course, if the relationship progressed then perhaps she would be by, dare he think it, adoption. Even if it didn't Claire was a good kid. He'd never seen a child more wholesome. That was the real driving force behind it, even if she did look remarkably like Rumor when she was younger as well.

He walked along the south side of the building. The things he would say to Séance when he found him. Suddenly his foot stepped in something warm and sticky. Looking down he saw a dark pool of blood. Following it with growing horror he saw his brother sprawled out on the pavement. Someone had shot him in the head. Then they had walked up behind him and shot him in the back several times. It was like they'd kept going until they were out of bullets.

"Oh my God," he whispered.

"**MERRY CHRISTMAS EASTER BUNNY!**"

Sharp and painful electric shocks flooded his system. His scream of pain and the sound of the machine filled the air. He fell forward into his brother's blood.

"Wow…" said Cha-Cha, "That totally worked."

"I think he pissed himself," Hazel frowned.

He walked forward and kicked him slightly.

"I think he's dead," corrected Cha-Cha.

"Great," answered Hazel, "That makes two of them. Only three more to go then."

"Time to go deliver Miss Weirdo to the boss. After that, it looks like it's off to the manor," said Cha-Cha as he strolled down the street with his partner, leaving the mess of gore behind them.

"Yeah," said Hazel, "Here, have a cookie."

"Thanks," said Cha-Cha as he accepted it and took a bite, "We need to get some more of these."

"Yeah."

"Who needs drugs when you have cookies and guns?"

"Who indeed?"


	16. Chapter 16

Rumor was worried. To tell the truth she was actually worried about a lot of things. Front and foremost was the fact that her daughter was being held by two psychopathic maniacs. The second was that it had been over an hour since she had heard from any of her brothers.

She wasn't particularly worried about Séance or Kraken. Séance had a kind of bumbling luck that kept him out of trouble for the most part. As for Kraken, despite the fact that he was with Reaper Rumor was more then ready to believe that he was alright. If Reaper got violent with him then Kraken was likely to dismember him and throw his corpse in the river. Especially with him being in the mood that he was in when he left. No, she wasn't worried about Kraken. Rumor was actually worried about Spaceboy.

Space had always checked in regularly when he went out. If something had happened to him and made it so he couldn't call…well…she didn't want to think about it. It wasn't as though there was anything she could do about it though. She couldn't call without her voice and she found it unlikely that Kraken or Séance would call her. Running her hands through her hair in frustration she sighed.

"What's wrong Allison?" Pogo asked.

Rumor had been so distracted that she hadn't even heard him come into the room. Sighing she wrote down her concerns on her notepad. Pogo read and nodded his head.

"I could call them if you like."

When she was a child Rumor had always been surprised at Pogo's ability to read their wants. Now she saw that he had just known them for so long.

"I don't want to seem stupid," Rumor wrote hesitantly.

"Don't worry about it," he reassured her, "I'll just tell them that **I **was worried. It means something completely different coming from me."

Giving a small smile Pogo took out his communicator and started dialing. Then he put it onto the intercom connection so Rumor could hear it too. For awhile there was no noise except quiet footsteps from upstairs and the ringing on the other end. After that there was just a dial tone. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Pogo looking at it with a worried expression.

"I…I think I'll try Diego," he said.

Sinking into a chair Rumor wanted to tell him that there was no need. If Space wasn't answering, then he couldn't. Pogo should've known better then to think that there was just something wrong with his communicator. She knew though. Numbness went over her. It felt like she was frozen, too heavy to move. Was she going to lose her daughter and her lover in the same night?

"What the hell do you want?" said Kraken irritably, picking up his communicator after what seemed like an age.

"We can't get a hold of your brother," Pogo responded without missing a beat, "Do you know where he is?"

"Great," said Kraken, "Not only am I stuck with the freak show over here but now I'm playing baby-sitter to the stupid Ape-"

"Pongidae persuasion," Pogo said sharply.

"I'll check," growled Kraken in response.

Kraken hung up on him and Pogo sighed. Rumor thought about how frustrating this must be for him. Just like always though, sympathy for others was washed away in the sadness of what was happening to her. God she was selfish. It seemed like all those thoughts reached Pogo. She didn't need him to say anything. Once again he was able to read her mood and thus remained silent. Only the sound of footsteps from upstairs permeated the room.

Rumor frowned. Footsteps? Both she and Pogo were downstairs. Who was walking around upstairs then? She got up slowly and turned around.

"Allison?" Pogo asked.

She put a finger to her lips and started to go upstairs. Still confused Pogo followed her. Rumor wasn't quite sure what she intended to do when she reached the top. If it was someone else after .05 then there really wasn't anything she could do. It would be stupid to try to go there just to get killed. On the off chance that it was Space or perhaps a lesser threat though, she continued her ascent.

There was nothing at the top of the stairs. All there was was the familiar long hallway with their numbers on the doors. Everything was silent. Nothing at all was different or disturbed. Not a hint of a footprint or that someone had been in the room at all. It was very odd considering she knew that someone was up here.

Suddenly a door opened from the other end of the hall. Rumor tensed, not quite sure what for. A silhouette stepped out, definitely not Spaceboy. It was too slender. In that moment Rumor decided what it was that she was tensing for. Running forward she tackled the figure.

The two of them hit the floor, hard. Rumor was figuring out her next move when she heard the figure mumble;

"Owwww…"

In shock Rumor got up and looked down at her sister.

"I didn't think that you'd be so happy to see me," said Vanya.

"You can walk?!" Pogo exclaimed.

Vanya smiled and got to her feet wobbily.

"Yeah," she said, "And a lot more. Is Diego still here?"

Rumor shook her head and watched curiously as her sister's face fell.

"They're out on patrol," Pogo said, "Why…why do you ask?"

"Because I remember," she said, running a hand along the wall, "And I have to apologize-"

"For what?" scribbled Rumor, "Having .05 shoot you? I don't see how that can be your fault."

Breathing deeply Vanya looked at Rumor and said;

"If Luther was upset at something that happened to you, wouldn't you want him to feel better?"

The question caught Rumor off guard and she didn't answer it. Clearing his throat uncomfortably he said;

"So you can remember everything now?"

"Everything," she said.

"Do you mind if I ask how?" frowned Pogo.

Shrugging Vanya took a bottle out of her pocket and tossed it to Pogo.

"You tell me."

Rumor looked over Pogo's shoulder so that she could see the bottle. Even upside down she could see that the label said DRINK ME.

"I kind of thought that perhaps one of you had left it?"

Rumor and Pogo shared a look.

"Well neither of us did it," Pogo said, "but I suppose that we can try to figure it out later. There are other things going on."

"Yeah," said Vanya, running her hand through her hair again, "Right now we have to find Claire."

Biting her lip Rumor started writing again. Once she had finished she held up the note;

"We don't have any leads. The boys are already out searching."

"Can't we Gene type?" frowned Vanya.

Both of them looked at her oddly.

"Gene type?" asked Pogo curiously.

Vanya looked surprised and then brought up one hand to touch her head.

"I think…when we were eight…" she said, "I think that Hargreeves could find people if he had their genetic material. He…mentioned it once when…when .05 threatened to run away…"

Rumor stared at her.

"How on earth do you remember that?" she wrote.

"I just saw my entire life flash before my eyes," replied Vanya, blinking as though she had a headache, "I think that I can remember it fairly well...some of those memories are probably going to fade soon though…"

"Then let's get down to the lab," Pogo said firmly, "I think I might know what you're talking about. But it's probably still experimental…but it's still worth a shot."

Following Pogo Rumor felt relief and excitement wash over her in a wave. Finally some progress was being made to find Claire.


	17. Chapter 17

"So," said Alchemist as she strolled down Flashing's Avenue with .05, "What's the deal with the crazy cartoon people? Assuming, as you do, that they're the ones who have Cat."

"Hmmm," .05 answered, "How to put this…"

Indeed .05 had never contemplated telling someone about his old job. Still, he couldn't risk the little bitch running off and tattling on him. He took off his jacket and threw it over his shoulder. It was a hot day out and he didn't feel like being overheated on top of everything else.

"Well, Hazel and Cha-Cha work for an company," he said at last, "A rather unique company at that. They're called the Temps Aeternalis. An agency dedicated to the preservation of the time continuum, through **manipulation **and **removals**. They police the time stream for anomalies, like myself. Beings out of time, and they put them to work."

He stopped outside of a store named Barks. In its glass window he saw several puppies playing around happily. They held his attention for a few minutes before he realized that he had a rather impatient audience. Without turning around he resumed his narrative.

"Their surgeons improved me. They can do anything. They halted my aging process, augmented my deteriorated form, and prepared me for training. It was painless."

Actually it had been relatively painful. How would you like waking up one morning and finding out that your liver was now where your heart was? How about if your intestines were wound around the inside of your leg? Still, Alchemist didn't need to know any of that.

"They saw potential in my time-traveling abilities. Performing micro jumps forward in time, I could move faster than the eye can perceive," he said, smiling with pride as he remembered just how good he was, "They turned me into the perfect instrument for re-habilitation of the time-continuum. 'Corrections' they called them. And I'd never felt more alive."

.05 was starting to enjoy talking about it now. He wondered how shocked Alchemist would be when she realized that her entire world was regulated by shadowy figures from another time and place. Or rather, from **any** time and place. That would be a shocker, wouldn't it? He was going to love it when he turned around and saw her expression.

For a moment he looked back at those puppies. Why did they keep catching his attention?

"There were others like me, lost in time, fractured and extracted from the life they knew. I don't know how they got there. None of them was as special as me, although **some **were more violent."

He turned around to face Alchemist. He was shocked to see that she was actually blowing bubbles with some gum she had put in her mouth. She popped the bubble she was making before saying;

"I didn't hear up to hear a brag fest shorty," she said disdainfully, "I asked to hear about your weird little co-workers."

"They're not my co-workers," said .05 darkly, rankled by the insult, "They've been sent to kill me and it appears that your sister got in the cross fire. And I'm not bragging. I'm simply stating the facts."

"Sounds like bragging to me," she shrugged.

She blew another bubble and popped it. .05 sighed in frustration.

"You're taking this all a little too well," he said, "I did expect you to have the common courtesy to be just a little bit shocked or disgusted."

"Actually the Temps Aeternalis makes a lot of sense when you think about it," she said as she started unwrapping another piece of gum.

"It makes sense that someone else was controlling your fate and the rest of the world?" asked .05, frowning.

Alchemist laughed. It was so thin and reedy that it made him want to shove his fingers in his ears and seek cover.

"You're a stupid one," she said as she started to chomp down hard on her new piece of gum, "Nobody controls **me **or any of our siblings for that matter. Someone did once and she was called Lenore. We blew her up and threw what was left in the harbor. Someone only controls you if you let them kid. We can forge our own way by blood and fire if we feel like it."

So stupid. Who did she think she was with this we control our own fate shit? Alchemist started to blow another damned bubble. She was loading up too many straws on an already pissed off camel's back. Furthermore, she would have to stop calling him kid or he'd let her know the taste of her own gastric juices.

"In any case," she said, "As I was saying earlier I didn't come all this way to hear your life story. Now, I want to know about two people and exactly why they're here. And I think their names sound something like Hazel and Cha-Cha. I don't know. What do you think?"

"Well then," said .05 irritably, "if that's what you want then I'll just cut things short. I became the prefect assassin. So who better to commit the most notorious assassination of all time? Who better to kill the president of the United States of America? They just didn't expect me to rebel. That's why they're after me, because I didn't finish the job for them. Are you satisfied now?"

He turned away from the infuriating woman back to the display of almost unbearably wonderful puppies. Who was a cute one? That was a cute one.

"Are you saying that **you **shot JFK?" asked Alchemist, her voice laced with incredulity.

Instead of answering .05 simply voiced his thoughts.

"That's one cute puppy."


	18. Chapter 18

Séance groaned before opening his eyes. Had someone just shot him? Nah, if someone had shot him then he wouldn't be groaning. Shuffling a bit he sat up and rubbed his head. Those drunks had probably hit him a good one. Everything around him seemed so bright. Where were his sunglasses? His hand fumbled around a bit until he found them. When he finally put them on he blinked.

It was like all of the color had been drained out of the background. All that remained were squiggly black lines on a whitish background. What a background it was! It looked like a set from an old western movie. Tripping. That heroine he'd taken an hour ago must've been some really powerful shit. He was snapped abruptly out of his musings when he heard a gruff voice say;

"Damn boy, you match the scenery. They don't got no sun down there no more? Gotta get ta work on that…"

Whipping around Séance saw an old-western cowboy on a horse. He adjusted his sunglasses and frowned.

"Who are you supposed to be?" he asked irritably.

The cowboy just gave him a smile. Séance gave him a long stare before it finally dawned on him. Finally he said;

"I'm **agnostic**…"

"Well, ain't this a bitch then," God spit, "HA!"

Once again adjusting his glasses Séance got to his feet. After another few minutes he said;

"You're kinda different then I imagined…"

"That's what everyone says," God said as he got down off his horse and turned to face Séance, "once they accept the fact that their number's up and it's time for that long walk into the town…"

"Great," sighed Séance, "So I'm dead?"

"Sure as the Injun's red," agreed God as he nodded, "but you can't stay here. 'Cuz I don't like you much."

Now Séance wasn't much of a church going person. Yet, if there was one thing that his crazy-religious-fanatic roommate at Shinyview had made him understand about Christianity (The roommate would later go completely insane and draw huge crosses all over the walls.) was that it wasn't supposed to work like that.

"Waitaminute," said Séance, waving his arms around wildly while voicing his concerns, "aren't' you supposed to love all of us?"

"**Hell no**!" he said before spitting, "Where'd you get that idea? I made ya so's I kin pick and choose, and you don't rub me right son."

"Hold on a second," said Séance, finding this just a little too hard to take in, "**You **made us?"

"Hmmmm," God said thoughtfully as he rubbed his chin, "I guess so."

"You **guess **so?" exclaimed Séance.

This day was officially ruined. It had started out so nice, so relaxing. Then he'd had a terrible string of rotten luck. First he'd had to go find Claire. Then he died. Now he had to listen to this trash.

"Why not?" questioned God, looking him up and down critically, "I sure as heck made everythin' else so I musta made you! Why? You got some other idea?"

"I have a couple of theories…" Séance responded, rubbing the back of his head.

Most of those theories included energizer bunnies and the Watergate conspiracy, so he didn't quite feel like sharing them.

"Y'know boy," said God as he got ready to mount his horse again, "the devil ain't gonna want you neither…looks like you're goin' back."

"Just like that?"

"Just like that. But I think there's something ya need to know first."

"And what's that?" Séance asked, starting to get fed up.

God motioned for Séance to come closer. Rolling his eyes Séance did so. God leaned down and whispered a few things. Séance's eyes grew bigger when he did.

"He did **WHAT**?" Séance exclaimed.

Pulling away God nodded and said;

"Sure as I'm standing here kid. And don't you be forgetting any 'o it."

"What am I supposed to do with all of that info?!" exclaimed Séance as God mounted his horse again.

"That's for ya ta figure out. I can't give ya all the answers. That'd be just plain 'ol lazy," said God indignantly.

"Great," said Séance as he threw his hands up into the air, "Just great!"

"Well," said God contemplatively, "I'll give ya a little piece of advice 'fore ya go tho."

Not feeling particularly hopeful Séance decided to listen anyway, just for the hey of it.

"It's always a longer walk to the men's room, bucakroo," said God after awhile.

For awhile neither of them said anything. Then Séance near screamed in frustration;

"And what the hell does **that **mean?!"

"Stop being such a fairy and go after that little son o' a bitch o' a brother," snapped God as he rode off into the completely white sunset, "And stay off the drugs, Klaus."


	19. Chapter 19

"So your sister asked you to go and rendezvous with your brother?" asked Reaper.

"Yeah," Kraken grunted.

He tried to keep their conversation to a minimum as they stalked the streets towards where Space and Séance were supposed to be patrolling. Kraken had never liked having to talk to people who had tried to kill him in the past.

"Talk about baby-sitting," Reaper laughed.

Kraken snorted. He wasn't exactly being won over by Reaper's personality either.

"Shut the fuck up, will you?" he snapped.

Reaper raised his eyebrows.

"That was going to become a compliment," he said, "for a minute there I actually thought that the Hargreeves family cared just a little bit for each other. It appears that it was my mistake though."

Kraken stopped short and whipped around.

"Do you know what **I **want to know?" he snarled, "What's the reason why none of the Cains can keep their damned mouths shut!"

Raising his eyebrows Reaper said coolly;

"Your family really hates each other, don't they?"

Taking in a deep breath Kraken said;

"Yes. Why should we like each other? Frankly I find your obsession with wanting to find out more then just a little disturbing freak."

"Disturbing?"

"It's like some ex-con writing children's books," snapped Kraken, "It's a mockery and annoying."

"You're comparing me to an ex-con?" Reaper asked, sounding slightly offended.

"You **are **an ex-con. Further more you're just like any of the scum I clean off the streets."

Rolling his eyes Reaper resumed walking. Kraken stared after him, hoping that he could spontaneously be able to kill Reaper by sheer willpower.

"I like to think of myself as more then just ordinary. As for an 'obsession' it's actually borrowed. I'm curious on the behalf of my deceased brother," he said, "Arkady wondered about all of you before he died. It really disturbed him to see your family you know. We both had the same kind of shitty upbringing and yet we turned out completely different. For instance, I cared about Cat enough to kill our 'mother' for her and for what was done to Jacob."

Stalking after him Kraken decided that it was best to just let him babble on. It wasn't worth his time to do anything about it. Right now there was a little girl somewhere who was probably scared out of her wits.

"I don't think you give a damn about anyone really."

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Reaper look back to see Kraken's reaction. He kept his face passive. He had dealt with worse then Reaper before. He just had to keep calm until they found his moron of a brother. The sooner he found Ghost the better. Then he could just go back home and…and…oh God, he'd have to face Vanya.

Now that she knew. He burned with anger remembering Alchemist's casual dismissal of their relationship. Vanya's eyes had stared at him full of questioning. Why, why now when this was the last thing that he needed? Vanya hadn't been supposed to know yet.

As though he could read Kraken's thoughts Reaper said;

"Alright, that's not exactly fair. It does look like you care about the color-changing one. Her name began with a V I think…"

His voice trailed off suggestively. Kraken gritted his teeth. Seeing that he had struck a nerve Reaper pressed on.

"Or maybe you don't," he said, "I long since started to think that the people in the Academy aren't actually capable of any real emotions."

With his tolerance stretched to its limits Kraken picked up Reaper and slammed him against the wall.

"Kill me and your niece dies," grinned Reaper, "Alchemist won't be happy if she finds me dead somewhere."

"You're pissing me off. Why the hell do you find the need to play the psychologist?" he snarled, "Does it make you happy?"

"Playing the psychologist or pissing you off?" asked Reaper, the smug look never leaving his face, "Because frankly it's the latter. Not that it takes a psychologist to figure out that you've got issues. And before you ask why, it's because I just hate every little trait about every single one of you. I'm down two siblings and may lose a third because of you bastards. I really, really hate you. Now let me down so that you can't make me happy by killing Claire."

For a moment no one said anything. Then Kraken threw disdainfully him to the ground. Grimacing slightly Reaper started to get up and brush the dirt off his coat. Then he frowned as his fingers came away coated with a dark sticky substance. He turned around and looked down the alley Kraken had thrown him. Cautiously he took out a small light that he carried with him. The light brightened the alley considerably.

Kraken's eyes widened as he saw the two bodies in a heap on the floor. Séance was obviously dead. No could someone survive a bullet to the head. Perhaps there was hope for Space though. He crouched by them and took Space's pulse. It was still there. Good.

Kraken slapped him on the face a few times. With a groan Spaceboy opened his eyes. Perfect. It didn't look like anything was wrong with him. Perhaps they should make sure though. If they got them to a doctor then perhaps they could-

"YOU SUUUUUUUUUCCCCKKKKKKKKK!"

Jumping in shock Kraken turned to see Séance, who was now sitting bolt upright.

"THIS IS WHY I'M **AGNOSTIC **YOU CLINT EASTWOOD RIP-OFF!" he yelled to the sky.

Séance turned to find out that everyone, including the recently conscious Spaceboy, was staring at him.

"What?" he asked.

Everyone looked at each other quizzically.

"You got shot," said Kraken, "In the head."

"Oh?" said Séance as he touched the bullet wound, "Yeah. That. Well, as it turns out in this family it doesn't mean much."

He paused for a few more seconds.

"Yeah, I almost forgot," he said as he got shakily to his feet, "Guess what I found out about .05? He's a time assassin!"

Reaper cocked his head.

"I think that perhaps the bullet has scrambled his brain."

For once Kraken had to agree with him.


	20. Chapter 20

The waiters at the Wok N Roll Chinese restaurant weren't terribly observant. If they were then they would've been in for quite a surprise. The conversation wasn't normal by any standards at the moment. It would've been a good story to tell their grandchildren about. At least that's what Alchemist thought as she finished up her chow mien.

All in all she had been very disappointed in the day. She had found out almost nothing but had had to listen to .05 prattle on about secret conspiracies and talking fish. She hated the conversation that she was in to death. Who did .05 think she was? A stupid child who could be bullshitted on this level? Still, she remained silent. Taking a sip of her soda she continued listening.

"Then I shot the other three shooters, which actually took four point five seconds. Not my best record, but it did the job. After that, I hijacked the corpse of a Temp agent, recalibrated its chronometer, and made my escape," said .05, obviously pleased and impressed by himself, "But going backwards is a crapshoot. A randomized science if hastily calculated. I materialized in my ten-year-old skin suit, missing the insertion point by twenty years. I was starving…thanks for picking up the check. My…my contribution to the local children's hospital has left me rather light in the coin purse."

The small dog that .05 had purchased let out a cute and rather irritating yip.

"Oh yeah," he added, "and the dog."

She looked at the dog in irritation. She had never liked small animals, not even as a child. Cute and fluffy things had never appealed to her in the way they had done with Cat. That was why she had ripped up all of her own stuffed animals. What she wouldn't give to do something terrible to it. In that respect her feelings towards it mirrored the feelings she had for its owner.

A waiter came up with the bill on a tray. Placed strategically around it were two fortune cookies. Nonchalantly Alchemist reached for one. She had never particularly liked Chinese food.

"Fortune cookies!" .05 cried in delight.

He practically swiped his and cracked it open. .05 read the message with a good deal of amusement.

"Ha!" he chuckled, "What's your say?"

Alchemist's actually said 'He who throws dirt is losing ground'. Good thing that she didn't listen to that hoo-doo. So she had absolutely no scruples about saying;

"You know your eyes are really brown."

"What?" asked .05, frowning.

"Yeah," continued Alchemist, "So full of **shit**."

.05 glared at her. Then he sighed and made an expansive gesture with his arm.

"Well, okay…I lied about the fish-" he started.

"You certainly did, .05. I'm a shubunkin, not an oranda," a voice cut in.

Both of them turned around to see what looked like a prop out of a cheap Sci-Fi movie. Of all things, a suit/exo-skeleton balancing a fishbowl with a hat on top? Alchemist snorted. It didn't look real or like the boss of a top secret organization of time manipulators. .05 on the other hand narrowed his eyes threateningly.

"I could kill you before your bottom hits the seat-" he snarled.

"But you won't-" said the Shubunkin, taking a small radio out of his pocket and clicking it on.

A few fizzes later a voice was heard talking, plainly terrified;

"Please! Why are you doing this to me!? I don't understand…p-please! I haven't done anything wro-!"

The Shubunkin clicked it off. .05 raised his eyebrows.

"And why am I supposed to show concern for your hostage?"

If she didn't know better she'd sworn that the fish was laughing inside its tank.

"Because right now," said the Shubunkin, "I've got two agents with their zappers trained on your biological mother…two days before she is to give birth to you."

.05 blinked.

"It's time to finish the job…to follow through with the assassination of President Kennedy, as per the original plan, preventing your past self from any interference-" continued the Shubunkin.

"Fuck me," said Alchemist as she turned to .05, "You were actually telling the truth."

"-I would prefer it if you came along as well, Ms. Cain," finished the Shubunkin.

Now it was Alchemist's turn to raise her eyebrows.

"Why should I care what happens to this little bastard?" she said in disgust.

It **felt **like the stupid fish was smiling at her.

"Because his mother isn't our only hostage," said the Shubunkin, taking out his radio again. Once more there was a brief fizzing.

"How can you learn lessons in here?" a voice asked in confusion, "Why, there's hardly room for you, and no room for lesson books at all!"

Alchemist's blood chilled.

"Cat," she whispered.

"Looks like you found your sister," .05 remarked.

At that moment it was Alchemist's greatest ambition to cut .05's face into fifty million pieces. Yet, that would get her nowhere. At that moment she had to remain calm. If everything was right then the fish was actually more brutal then it looked. That wasn't a sentence that actually thought that she'd be able to repeat again, ever.

Reaper had said that they had to get Cat back at any costs. Alchemist agreed with that. She was more than willing to take extreme measures for Cat. She hadn't batted and eye when she'd kidnapped and threatened Rumor's little daughter. Indeed she wouldn't see anything wrong with butchering a whole school full of them if that would save her sister. She had come to terms with that a long time ago. Teaming up with a bunch of Time assassins actually seemed mild in comparison to all the other things she was willing to do for her sister.

"Let's get going," she said.


	21. Chapter 21

"Interesting family you have," noted Reaper as Séance took another shovelful of dirt from the ground.

"Would you please tell me why you're digging up my best friend?" hissed Space.

"Cert-ainly," smiled Séance, "You see, while I was dead, I found out that-"

As he dug he wove a tale that seemed like a load of bullshit. However, all Space could do was stare in disbelief when Séance unearthed the corpse of a rather unfortunate member of the Temps Aeternalis.

"So he's going to assasinate JFK," explained Séance as he finished with the shovel.

"I should've cut that kid while he was sleeping," Kraken growled.

Spaceboy massaged his temples. How could everything go so terribly wrong in such a short amount of time? First Claire, now his brother was a time-travelling assassin who was about to kill the President of the United States. What next? A giant pink unicorn was going to come and destroy the city?

"All we have to do," Séance said, "Is go back and stop him. It really is as simple as that."

Now this he was going to have an issue with.

"Do you even know how to work this?" asked Kraken speculatively.

"Of course!" Séance said, hurt.

"You know that I respect time travelling as much as the next person," said Space uncertainly, "But-"

"You're going to bring up Ancient Egypt again," Kraken said, "aren't you?"

"What happened there?" Reaper asked, curious.

"Well," grinned Séance, "Do you wanna know how the Sphinx **really **lost its nose?"

"I think we've heard quite enough," Space interrupted loudly, "All I'm trying to say is that we should probably think this through a little more."

"Hmmmmm," said Reaper, "The Kennedy assassination equals your brother which equals Cat. Hmmmmmm, Cat or aimlessly meandering around the city? I'm done thinking. Sign me up."

"Nobody asked you," Kraken snapped.

Reaper raised his eyebrows but said nothing. Séance shrugged and bent down further into the grave.

"Look," Space said, "We need to find Ghost to save Claire. But how do we even know that he went back in time yet? He might be in a café right now and we wouldn't know?"

"Are you willing to take that chance with your niece's life?" Reaper asked nonchalantly.

"Once again," Kraken said, "No one asked you."

Rolling his eyes Reaper went to stand by Séance.

"Maybe we are over thinking this over too much," said Kraken, "If the little shit has gone back in time, or if he is, we'll be there waiting for him. It's as simple as that."

"I know, I know," said Space, "How do we even know that Séance knows how to work that thing though? If we get stranded-"

"Enough talking," said Séance, "Let's flower power our asses the hell outta here!"

Too late Space realized what his brother had been doing in the grave. He had started fiddling around with a piece of machinery on the corpse. As Space and Kraken watched in horror Séance leaned forward and pressed a button. Space moved forward but he was thrown back by a blinding swirl of colors. Then he hit the ground hard and for a moment he saw stars.

Stumbling he got to his feet. At first all he was able to take in was the humidity. Soon after that he noticed the thick jungle and tall grass. A blood-red sky light up the entire clearing that they were in. It was about then that he realized he wasn't in Dallas. Not unless they had missed the mark and gone back into the prehistoric era. God he wished that hadn't happened.

Looking behind him he saw Kraken with a similar look on his face. Reaper was off a little further ahead of him, bent over and looking at something. Séance was standing with a stupid look on his face.

"So much for knowing what you're doing," Kraken snorted.

"I knew what I was doing!" huffed Séance.

"Obviously not," Spaceboy said, "So where exactly are we?"

Séance raised a hand and waved it around vaguely.

"That is a very good queston," he said, "and one that I have absolutely no idea how to answer."

"Excellent."

"Hey Umbrella Bastards?" Reaper called from where he was, "I think you should come see this."

"I swear," said Kraken as they walked over, "As soon as Claire's safe then I'm ripping him limb from limb and mailing each piece to a separate crematorium."

As they approached they saw that Reaper was looking at a corpse. From where he stood Space couldn't see the object of his interest.

"Now I never tried to learn anything after I killed Lenore," said Reaper, "Which meant I stopped my formal education at fifteen. However, I was under the impression that Kennedy was assassinated in 1963."

"He was," Space said.

"Then how do you explain this?"

Reaper withdrew to show them the bodies of two obviously American, and very obviously dead, . More then that he was holding one of the man's dog tags. Each dog tag was stamped with the date; 1960. It was only then that Space realized that the sky wasn't blood-red by coincidence. An explosion rocked the ground to confirm his theory. He turned angrily to Séance.

"You dumped us in **VIETNAM?!**"

Kraken turned to Séance.

"You suck."


	22. Chapter 22

"This won't hurt," Pogo assured Rumor as he poised the syringe over her skin, "You'll just feel a slight pinch."

The pinch was actually a little more then slight. Wincing slightly as the needle withdrew Rumor reached for her notepad.

"I'm not six anymore Pogo."

All he did to that statement was nod. While Rumor might be one of the more mature Hargreeves siblings he still believed that they all possessed the selfishness of a child in some form or another. Putting the syringe away he put some rubbing alcohol on a cotton ball. Quickly he ran it over the incision and placed a band-aid over it.

"Do you think it'll work?" asked Vanya as she looked doubtfully at the computer screen.

"We've got a fifty-fifty chance," said Pogo as he removed the small container of blood from its home and put it into the machine, "If it does work then a red dot should show up on the map. If not…then…"

Then they were out of options. However Pogo didn't think that Hargreeves would leave anything as a prototype for over a decade. He pressed a few more keys on the computer. The long bar came up and the cursor became an hourglass.

"It's starting," he said.

He turned around to see the two sisters standing behind him. Rumor was watching him with an intensely concentrated and worried expression. She looked alert and tense to the point where her limbs were shaking. Pogo knew that she had been worrying all night about her daughter. To be perfectly frank so was he. He didn't know the Cains as well as the rest of the team, but they seemed unlikely to keep their promise to set Claire free. Perhaps Rumor knew that too.

Vanya seemed a good deal more lucid then her sister. Every now and then she would put her hand to her eyes and wince. Getting your memories back into a mind that had been bereft of them for so long couldn't be pleasant. Not to mention that she wasn't one hundred percent used to walking on her new feet.

Pogo was relieved more then anything about Vanya. Maybe now that she was back Kraken would stop trying to get himself killed, or at least cheer up a bit. It would be too much to hope that he would stop fighting with Space, Rumor, and the rest of his siblings. Yet, it would still be better then before.

A beeping noise alerted him that it was done. Rumor moved forward, looking excited. Quickly Pogo clicked on the results. He saw a map narrow down until there were two blinking red dots.

"That one is you Allison," he said as he pointed to a corner in the screen.

"So that means that that's Claire," said Vanya as she pointed to a second dot.

Pogo heard Rumor take a sharp breath. It was quickly followed by the scratching of a pen.

"Call Space."

Reading her note Pogo nodded, not bothering to remind her that they still hadn't heard from Kraken on Space's condition. He took out his communicator and dialed the number. Unsurprisingly no one picked up.

"Try…" said Vanya, nearly choking on the word, "Try Diego."

Once again Pogo was met with an unresponsive communicator. All three of them shared uneasy glances.

"Do you think something happened to them?" Vanya asked.

"No shit," Rumor wrote down.

"There's no need for that," said Pogo, once more finding himself forced to be the voice for reason, "Now we all know that there's nothing that they can get themselves into that they can't get themselves out of."

Once more Rumor took to scribbling on her notepad.

"Claire doesn't have that option."

"No," agreed Pogo, "She doesn't."

No one said anything for awhile. At length Vanya said;

"Why don't we go after her?"

Rumor raised her eyebrows.

"Well why not?" said Vanya defensively.

"No plan," she wrote irritably, "no powers, no knowledge about any of this. Tell me, did all your common sense go with your memories?"

Vanya's mouth hardened into a thin line.

"I'm just pointing out the obvious," she said coldly.

"The obviously stupid," Rumor wrote.

Taking a deep breath Pogo got ready to intervene. It was like a law of physics. Put two Hargreeves in the same room together and they would be sure to try to claw each other's eyes out before the end of the hour. Surprisingly Vanya cut him to the chase.

"Look," she hissed, "Right now we've got one of two options. We can either wait and see what happens to your daughter, which might not be good, or we go and help. Which do you prefer?"

Rumor glared at Vanya and clicked her pen opened. As it turned out they never got to hear what her decision. For only seconds later they heard a voice bellow from outside;

"HELLO! I'M CHA-CHA AND I'LL BE YOUR WEATHERMAN FOR THIS EVENING! FORECASTS FOR TONIGHT INCLUDE OVERCAST SKIES AND ONE HUNDRED PERCENT CHANCE OF _**ENTRAILS**_!"


	23. Chapter 23

"How was I supposed to know that I had calibrated it wrong?" said Séance as he threw up his arms, "I'd never used it before!"

"You said that you knew what you were doing," Reaper said as he got up slowly.

"And you believed me?" asked Séance harshly, "Golly-gee wilikers Batman you're a fucking moron."

"Look," said Space holding up his hand to stop Reaper from using the rather intimidating scythe he was getting out.

It was a pity he had done that really, because Kraken was feeling like seeing Séance die an agonizing death at the moment. At the moment only a very, very faint strain of sanity was keeping him from trying to kill his brother himself. With every word that Séance said the thread trembled and warbled though.

"Just send us back and we can try again," Space said firmly, "No big deal."

The look on Séance's face plainly said that he had absolutely no idea how to get them back. The thread snapped and Kraken picked up Séance by the collar of his stupid Hawaiian shirt and held him up in the air.

"Look you fucking bastard," Kraken growled, ignoring Space's protests and Reaper's chortles of laughter, "You tell us how to get back right now or so help me you're gonna taste your cerebrospinal fluid, understand?"

Strangely enough Séance didn't seem fazed by Kraken's attack.

"What?" he said, "You got a program on tonight or something? Because personally there was a Walrus special with Kevin Costner that I wanted to watch on HBO-"

Séance was saved from Kraken knocking several of his teeth out by a loud explosion several miles off. Kraken abruptly dropped Séance, who fell to the floor with a thud. He hadn't meant to, but he had enough trouble trying to keep his own balance.

"Perhaps we should move to somewhere that we might not get killed?" suggested Spaceboy

"We're in Vietnam," Kraken growled, "You can get killed **everywhere**."

The truth of that statement sunk in slowly. He saw Space scratch his head and look around as machine gun fire carried on in the background. Besides that the only thing that could be heard was Reaper's chortles. However, they were getting much much louder. Séance got up.

"I thought I was insane," he said.

"No," Reaper laughed, "I'm not insane. I just realized that because of these fuckers you brother works for I'm probably never going to get home again. Cat's probably going to be dead by the time I get back!"

Reaper continued laughing so much that tears rolled down his eyes. He wrapped his arms around his waist and bent over. The Hargreeves brothers looked at each other blankly. Finally, out of irritation more then anything, Kraken said;

"Then why the hell are you laughing?"

Still laughing Reaper looked up.

"If I'm laughing," he said, "Then I can't very well stab myself through the throat with my scythe. God I want to die right now. I really, really want to die in the most painful manner possible."

It was then that Kraken realized that the tears in Reaper's eyes weren't completely caused by his insane laughter.

"Yet I can't," he wheezed crazily, "Because there's one thing that I have to do right now. I grew up believing, fucking believing, that we should stick together. However, when one of us dies, we need to give our pain back ten fold. And Cat…my Cat…she wasn't even doing anything."

"So when I find these Temps Aeternalis I am going to kill every damned one of the motherfuckers. I'm going to make them drown in their own blood and choke on their own shit and organs. I'll make sure that they die screaming in fucking agony. And when I've killed all of them then I'm going to kill all of the bastards' friends and their families. Anyone even remotely related with them is going to die terribly for her."

For a minute Kraken wondered if Reaper had actually lost the ability to realize what they were saying. Personally he was wondering if he should fetch a strait-jacket from somewhere. Séance on the other hand had managed to get distracted by a yellow butterfly. At least Spaceboy was concentrating on the problem at hand. He was looking at Reaper as if he was from another planet.

Space exchanged a covert glance with Kraken. If Reaper got violent then they would have to take him down. He looked ready to charge at any minute. Instead of doing so though, he wandered back to the body of the G.I.s. He looked at one of them thoughtfully before taking the coat off of one of them.

"What are you doing?" Kraken asked carefully.

"I'm taking his uniform," Reaper said calmly, "This isn't the first time that I've bone through a dead man's pockets. You see, right now I feel like killing **fuckload** of people. There's a rather convenient war going on. That'll do until Kennedy's assassination."

He turned around and his face was stoic, somehow more terrible then his oddly laughing face.

"Because you are going to take me with you when the time comes," he said.

Once more Kraken and Space shared a covert look. Reaper cocked his head.

"Or I could just kill every single one of you right now. I could also detonate little Claire's head device. I mean, I actually want to kill her now. Of course the device might not work through time. Do you really want to take the chance though?"

Calmly Space said;

"Of course not. However, going out there would be a bad idea-"

"I'd like to see the Viet-Cong **try **to kill me," Reaper hissed, "Or any of you for that matter. He got shot in the head and survived. It doesn't look like it matters for you, or for perhaps any of us."

Reaper paused to unlace the soldier's boots. As he spoke he seemed to have calmed down somehow. Still Kraken remained wary.

"So I'm going, and one of you is going with me. Then we get together and find your brother in three years. I don't care what the rest of you are going to do in that time, but that's what's going to happen."

Spbaceboy opened his mouth to speak but shut it almost immediately. No one knew what to do in this sort of situation. Well, no one but Séance apparently.

"Not it!" he said quickly.


	24. Chapter 24

Rumor had just enough time to gape in the direction of the disembodied voice before a stream of bullets shattered the windows. Pogo roughly pushed the two sisters to the ground before leaping under the desk himself. Looking around Rumor saw that neither her sister nor Pogo had been hurt. Glass continued to fall around them though and she quickly hid her head again.

After a few minutes the guns stopped, but Pogo motioned for them to keep down.

"Dude," they heard, "What was **that **about?"

"It felt kind of right," another voice said, "You know what I mean man."

"Yeah, but you like totally gave them a warning! That's just sloppy!"

Rumor maneuvered herself so that Vanya and Pogo were in her line of vision.

"Who they hell are they?"

"I have no idea," Pogo whispered.

"Hey, it's funner if we get to hunt them down," one of the voices pointed out.

"Oh, riiiiiiigggghhhttttt man. We do need some of that."

"Crawl towards the door," Pogo whispered, "Go to the end of the hall. Hargreeves had a panic room and weapon catch in there. From there we should be able to get out. We have to go now though."

Vanya, who was even paler then usual, nodded. Silently they crept along towards the floor. As they did they heard snatches of conversation.

"You want to kick down the doors or should I?"

"Eh, you can do it."

"Really?"

"No."

"What?!"

"Just joking."

"You are so _mean_."

Once they were in the hall Rumor got to her feet unsteadily. Gesturing towards the end door Pogo stepped forward to lead.

"Just kidding you dude."

"It's totally uncool for you to kid about stuff like this! It's like putting vitamins in Cookies."

"That's a bit of an unfair comparison."

The door at then end of the hall led to a ladder. Rumor snorted as she thought of her bastard of a father. Why did he have to make his house into such a maze? Pogo made Vanya climb down first with Rumor behind her. As ever he was the gentleman, ever trying to care for them as if they needed it.

"You're getting kinda sensitive lately," one of the voices said, "We need to get some of that proper pie real soon. In an hour. Tops."

"Yeah man."

"In fact, let's break down the doors together."

"Cool!"

"Okay, on the count of three. One…three!"

From where Rumor was she could hear the wood from the door shattering. It made her want to climb down the ladder even faster. Unfortunately she was right behind Vanya, and Vanya didn't have complete control of her legs yet. She was half climbing and half falling down the stupid ladder. Rumor hissed impatiently.

After a few minutes they reached the bottom. Pogo ran up to one of the walls in the hall and started knocking on the different bricks.

"Where are the weapons?" Rumor wrote.

"I think in the trunk," he whispered back.

In the far corner Rumor spotted the old-fashioned Victorian trunk. She went over to it and quickly yanked off the lock. Inside there was everything from machine guns to revolvers. Just to be safe she decided to take some of everything. She even gave Vanya a few, despite the fact that her sister looked at it like she didn't know what it was.

Pogo said something under his breath that Rumor couldn't quite understand. Even so, she could hear that he wasn't happy. From the end of the hallway footsteps echoed loudly.

"What's wrong?" she scribbled hurriedly.

"I think that Hargreeves might've sealed it up," he whispered.

At that moment Rumor wanted her voice back for one reason and one reason only; to swear. She wanted to swear so incredibly badly. However, her thoughts were interrupted when she heard someone yell far too close for comfort;

"Ollie-Ollie Oxen Free!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Turning around Rumor did a double take. There was this guy wearing a cartoon **squirrel **mask. For a minute her brain didn't even register that he was there. Seconds later it registered that he had a gun. What she did next owed everything to instinct and absolutely nothing to planning.

She fired the AK-47. Rumor had never used guns before. She'd fought people with guns, but she'd never actually used them. There had never been a need for her to do so. So in her inexperienced hands the bullets splayed all over the walls, nowhere near her intended target. The noise was ear-splitting and she saw Vanya and Pogo throw their hands over their ears.

When she actually managed to open her eyes again she saw that the man was hiding behind a wall. Good. He wasn't attacking them, not for the moment anyway. However, soon enough he would figure out that she didn't have a clue as to what she was doing. They needed to think of an incredibly brilliant plan before he did, preferably fast.

She felt a tug on the collar of her coat. Turning she saw Vanya pulling both her and Pogo toward the back wall. Instinctively Rumor opened her mouth to say something. She shut it almost immediately when no sound came out. Luckily Pogo voiced her question;

"Where are we going?"

"Televator," Vanya said briefly before dragging them into the room, "Set us near to where Claire is."

Both Rumor and Vanya slammed the door shut behind them as they heard footsteps. Rumor quickly started looking around for any excess furniture to barricade the door with. Finally her eyes settled on some old chairs. She pointed them out to Vanya and the two sisters practically threw the furniture at the door in an attempt to block it. Meanwhile Pogo tried to set the controls.

"This may take anywhere from eight to fifteen minutes-" Pogo started worriedly.

A blast of bullets at the door interrupted him.

"We don't have that much time," Vanya said, looking at the door frantically, "We have to go now."

"We won't end up where we're supposed to though," Pogo babbled as he followed Vanya into the Televator.

Another spray of bullets started to weaken the door. Rumor knew that they'd be able to get through soon, whoever they were.

"I think we'll take our chances," Vanya said as she gestured for Rumor to get in.

Quickly Rumor climbed in. It was quite lucky that she did so. Only seconds later the doors protecting them were ripped apart by even more bullets. Frantically Rumor saw her sister press on the | button. The televator responded quickly, but not quickly enough.

Bullets started to fly through the sliver of the televator's doors. Rumor heard one imbed itself into the wall behind her. One got the side of Vanya's hand, which had been holding onto the button. Another one slammed into Pogo's shoulder. She heard him let out a groan of pain.

Even so, the doors close. Soon after she felt the familiar rumbling that always followed a televator transport. Rumor sighed in relief. Although they were wounded, at least they were safe.


	25. Chapter 25

August 8, 1962

"So what're you trying to tell us?" asked Merlin, "You got a girl back home or something?"

It was getting dark now and the small campfire wasn't doing much for illumination. They hadn't had any particular orders from HQ for about two days so they had decided to lay low for awhile. It wasn't often that the lull between missions was this long and they decided to make the most of it while they could.

Piccolo chortled and shook his head at his friends.

"Girls," corrected Cole, "Well, I might not. I mean, it looked like Jean was going to marry Todd, but Jean's kinda flighty. Then there's Eliza and Annabelle-"

"How many girls are there?" Burne asked with a mixture of awe and disgust.

"About six," Cole said casually.

"Jesus," Merlin said.

"I don't suppose that you'd be serious with any of them?" Piccolo smirked.

"That's cruel," Cole said, hurt, "I am serious with every single one of them."

"What're you gonna do then?" asked Merlin, "Marry them all?"

There were a few scattered laughs.

"Of course not," Cole said conspiratorially, "I'll just marry the one who gets pregnant first."

The camp circle erupted into full on laughs. Piccolo was having trouble wiping the tears from his eyes; they came so fast and hard.

"Well," said Burne, "You know what they say about a guy who has more then two girlfriends at a time."

"Oh no," Cole moaned.

"You see, this guy with ten girlfriends walks into a bar-" started Burne.

"No," Merlin groaned.

"Just hear me out to the end. So the bartender says-"

"You got a girlfriend Burne?" Piccolo asked.

The sudden attack of blushing that came on him obviously said he hadn't. A look akin to admiration came over Merlin's face. Things turned sour when Cole said;

"How about you Merlin?"

"I'm married," he said shortly.

Now they were on risky territory. Everyone knew not to talk about someone's marriage. Only a complete idiot would risk going farther then-

"So how's that then?"

You could always count on Burne to do the stupidest thing possible.

"Fine," said Merlin with narrowed eyes.

"Well what's that mean-?"

"How about you Piccolo?" Cole asked, a little louder then necessary, "Girlfriend? Fiancé? Wife?"

Piccolo could tell that Cole was wanted to say; Sister? Cousin? Grandma? He was that desperate to change the conversation. Quickly Piccolo answered;

"Well, there's Kayla."

Burne's attention was diverted.

"Who's that?"

"Girlfriend," shrugged Piccolo, "I was kinda thinking of asking her to marry me when I get back or something."

"Good-looking?" Cole asked, interested.

"Incredibly."

"Oooooooohhhh," Cole whistled, "Does she have a sister?"

"Why?" asked Merlin, "So you can have seven?"

Another few laughs were elicited from this comment.

"Hey," said Burne, "What about…"

His voice dropped off as their two commanding officers came back. Piccolo exchanged glances with Merlin. The Sergeant and the Corporal had wandered out of the jungle about a year ago. The Sergeant looked like he would rather be anywhere then where he was. That was quite common though. The Corporal however, looked like he was ready to kill until there was nothing left. That was unusual.

Obviously they were higher rank. There wasn't a member of the platoon who doubted that they were skilled. Nobody knew where they came from though. It was pretty creepy to tell the truth. Both of them nodded at the other four men before continuing on to a place a little ways from the rest of the camp. No one said anything for the rest of the night, the conversation loosing its will to survive.

.

.

.

"Wasn't that cute?" 'Corporal' Reaper said as he laid down out of ear-shot, "Talking about their **girlfriends**."

"Shut the fuck up," 'Sergeant' Kraken snapped.

"It's ridiculous," continued Reaper, "Chances are they're probably all going to die before they get back to these women anyway. Doesn't really matter."

"I said shut the fuck up," Kraken snarled as he turned on his side, his back to Reaper.

Kraken knew now that he had the most goddamn rotten luck in the history of the world. First of all he was trapped in Vietnam. Second, he was trapped with this moron.

"You know I'm right," Reaper continued talking, "I'm betting that Burne goes first. He's just so stupid."

"If you don't shut the fuck up you bastard," Kraken said through gritted teeth, "Then I am going to shove my gun so far down your throat that you'll be shitting bullets."

For awhile there was blessed silence. Kraken had almost begun to hope that Reaper had decided to lay off when he heard a rather introspective;

"Who do you think was worse, Lenore or Hargreeves?"

Kraken turned back to him so he could glare at him.

"It's an honest question," he said, "Because here's how I see it. Hargreeves made you all hate each other, so that kind of made you strong in one way. Lenore made us all draw together which made us strong in another way. Only problem is that you don't give a shit if one of your siblings dies and it hurts like fucking hell when we lose one of ours."

"I don't care," Kraken said, "Hargreeves was a bastard and Lenore sounds like a bitch. Now let me go to sleep and think about your dead siblings in silence."

Turning on his side again Kraken started to close his eyes. Just then he heard a;

"Hey?"

"What now?" Kraken snapped.

"Do you miss her?"

It took awhile for the question to reach his brain. Even once it had it was difficult to understand though.

"What are you talking about?" he finally asked.

"Well…" Reaper's voice trailed off before getting strong, "Every single moment I'm thinking about how I'd love for Cat to be here, well not **here **obviously but just near me. I know she's gone but…but…I really wanted us to…anyway I was talking about that white girl. I know she can't remember you or anything, but do you still wish you could see her?"

It had been a long time since Kraken had thought about Vanya. It wasn't as though he was trying to hide away her memory or to forget about her. She was just too painful to think about normally. He'd deemed it best if he just locked up the memories for awhile.

God how he wished things were like they used to be. For the first time in his life he had actually enjoyed waking up. Why shouldn't he of? He'd had someone who'd cared about him and wanted him to be happy. Hell, **he'd **wanted her to be happy. It wasn't the healthiest relationship, he knew that. Yet, he loved her. Even when she couldn't remember his name he loved her. It just made things hurt more though.

"Do you miss her?" Reaper asked again.

"Every damn day," Kraken replied.

Reaper chewed the information over for a minute.

"You've got no one to kill to help you through that," he said, "That's really sad. I feel kinda sorry for you now. Me, I just kill everything in sight so I can practice for those Temp guys."

All the rage associated with Reaper and Sententia flowed back in a tidal wave.

"Shut the fuck up," Kraken snapped, "And if you ever, **ever **mention Vanya again then Claire or no I'm going to make sure that you know what the hell your pancreas looks like. Now go to sleep."

For once, Reaper listened to him.


	26. Chapter 26

Panting and bleeding Vanya stumbled out of the elevator. Her hand stung like hell and she had to apply pressure to it to try to stave off the worst of the bleeding. Looking over she saw that Rumor was performing a similar service for Pogo. Tentatively Vanya looked closer. She winced as she realized just how bad it was.

The bullet had hit the bone. From the way that white pieces were protruding from it, his scapula had been shattered. Pogo moved his shoulder slightly and winced. When he did Vanya could make out the metallic glint of the bullet. She took in a sharp breath.

"We have to get you to the hospital."

Rumor shook her head fiercely.

"We have to get Claire first," she wrote with her free hand.

Anger began to well up in Vanya.

"He could die if we don't get him to the hospital," she snapped, "Now Claire still has some time. We can get him there then come back."

"We need to go now," Rumor scribbled, now underlined several times.

Vanya took a deep calming breath and tried not to clench her hands into fists.

"We need to go to the hospital right now," she said, "We can go after Claire in a minute."

Rumor glared at Vanya. Weakly Pogo said;

"Vanya, Allison's right. Claire should-"

"Claire's a hostage," Vanya hissed as she stepped back into the televator, "They won't kill her until something goes wrong. As far as I know nothing has gone wrong yet. The boys are still out looking for .05 and that should keep the Cains happy-ish for awhile yet. Now tell me how to set this stupid machine."

Very slowly Rumor wrote a reply on her notepad. She held it up with equal care.

"Claire's my daughter," was all it said.

Frowning Vanya looked at Rumor. Her eyes were desperate and panicked. Sighing Vanya said;

"Pogo, do you think you could get yourself to the hospital in this thing?"

Pogo smiled and managed to nod to himself. Rumor shot him a grateful look as she got to her feet.

"Claire should be at 115th Elm Street. I think we're on ash street, which is near…so…"

"Thanks Pogo," Vanya said, "Just get to the hospital and make sure that the doctors know you're insured. And don't take your hand away from the wound. Okay? Not until the doctors get to it."

Giving a small smile Pogo nodded. Rumor turned around and walked out of the televator. Seconds later it was gone in a blinding flash of light.

"Shall we?" Rumor wrote as she loaded one of her guns with a clip.

Nodding Vanya did the same. She had only the vaguest idea of how to use a gun. It had been a few years since she went to the shooting range. Back in college she'd had a boyfriend who was into that sort of thing. She couldn't remember his name though. That wasn't particularly odd though. Most of them had only lasted for weeks. It was hard to be with one person when you were still in love with another. Rumor had managed though.

In any case Vanya knew load and fire. That was about it. Usually that was all you needed to know. That was just about all there was too it anyway. At least that was all people thought. They forgot one very important part of that though. People need to know how to aim the damn things.

Rumor walked in silence. Her mind was on other things. Vanya couldn't blame her for that. Claire was her only child after all. It seemed to be a trait of the Hargreeves that they tended to hold on desperately to anything that they had. Even if holding on so tightly meant forcing it away, they would never let go.

They both stopped as they reached the house. It looked like any normal tenement building, just about three levels with steps leading up to it. Any normal run down one. No lights were on and the place looked deserted. That was probably the intended effect though. Rumor looked carefully from side to side to make sure that no one was watching them. Then she walked up the steps, Vanya tailing close behind.

When Rumor reached the top of the steps she gave the door a roundhouse kick. It gave way quite easily. Obviously the Cains hadn't put too much emphasis on the security measures. They turned on the lights to the first room. Empty. So was the second and the third. The next level was empty too.

That made them particularly on the alert when they got to the third floor. Most of the rooms there were empty too. No one was there and Vanya was beginning to feel relieved that the Cains hadn't hired any goons, if not a tad suspicious. Why go through all this trouble? It was relatively easy to find her when she thought back on it. There hadn't been any real obstacles. Were the Cains arrogant, or just stupid? Or was there something they didn't know about that the Cains had placed their confidence in?

She soon found out. When they finally found Claire in one of the top rooms she yelled out;

"Mom!"

Or that was what Vanya figured that she was tryingto say. For it actually came out more like;

"Mmphf!"

It was apparent now that the Cains had been lying about the machine they said she'd be strapped into. Interlocking wires practically incased her niece's head in a monstrosity. Several of them were held together by bolts and screws, making it look like quite a formidable machine. That wasn't the worst of it though.

Besides the parts of the wire looking like hands reaching for the brain, other parts of the machine held knives. Twelve of the wires actually went inside Claire's mouth, making the contraption look like a bizarre set of grills. Everything was poised and held in perfect positions. The Cains had been lying when they said that Claire would die terribly if the machine was set off. Claire wouldn't die terribly, she would die **horribly**.


	27. Chapter 27

Life was good. That was what Pogo had decided. At the age of sixty-five he figured he'd be retired. That had basically been the plan since he was born. Well, he wasn't retired. He was certainly living the high life though. Being King of a tribe of sentient type writers wasn't exactly what he'd had in mind. Still, it wasn't bad.

It was especially good when they were writing your memoirs. Ah, he'd had an interesting life. Already several people had offered to buy his biography from him. He didn't need the money though. Who needed money when you were already in paradise with absolutely no worries?

He didn't have any worries. He was King and he was in absolutely perfect health. He didn't even have the back pain that he'd expected. Pogo could still swing from trees and run around from dusk to dawn without tiring even a little bit. That was wonderful, really wonderful.

Currently he was reclining in a lawn chair on the beach. The sun was shining but a cool breeze kept it from being to hot. He took a sip of his pomegranate juice. He was going to need some more of that in a few minutes. In fact, why didn't he just make a swimming pool out of the stuff? He certainly had enough to do that with. Truck-sized pomegranates made the best juice.

A blinding flash of light made Pogo cover his eyes. It seemed odd and completely out of place. So it was with great caution that he opened his eyes very slowly.

"Hey space-monkey, great to see you again."

Pogo stared at the intruder for a very long time.

"And you are…?"

"Séance," Séance said, giving him a mock salute, "You had this weird habit of calling me Klaus though."

Once more Pogo stared at Séance.

"I'm dreaming, aren't I?" he said.

"Yes and no," Séance said as he sat down in front of him, grabbing Pogo's pomegranate juice, "Do you mind? Dream transmission's always make me thirsty."

Actually Pogo did mind. He minded very much. Séance didn't wait for a reply though and downed it all in one gulp.

"Anyway, you've got to come to Saigon," he said, "That's Saigon in Vietnam. Not some other Saigon, like the one in Egypt."

"There's not a Saigon in Egypt," Pogo said blandly.

"I've said it once," Séance said, "I've said it a million times; you're not as smart as you look. Besides, what kind of dream is this? Pomegranates? Why not strawberries or something else?"

"I like pomegranates."

"Whatever," said Séance, "Anyway, you do need to come to Saigon as soon as you wake up. Okay?"

Pogo crossed his arms.

"You're not Klaus."

"I never said I was. Said that was what you called me."

"Klaus," Pogo said loudly, "Is a sweet-tempered twelve-year-old who cried when he stepped on a cockroach. **You **are a loud-mouthed rude thirty-something-year-old. This is a dream, and it's a particularly annoying one."

"I'm from the future," shrugged Séance.

"That doesn't exclude the fact that you are nothing like Klaus," insisted Pogo.

Now it was Séance's turn to stare at Pogo for awhile.

"You think anyone who's a Hargreeves is gonna stay 'sweet' forever?" he asked, "You are one deluded little chimp. In any case, you do have to come to Saigon."

Out of nowhere Séance whipped out a pair of sunglasses and put them on.

"Oh, for the record," Séance said, "I just wanna say that this is one fucked-up dream."

.

.

.

Pogo awoke clutching his head. That had been some really foul vindaloo last night. Even when he was eating it those vegetables had looked suspicious. He should've listened to his gut instinct and not eaten it. Next time he needed to go with something safe like korma or something. Now he had had some terrible dreams with an even worse stomach ache.

He reached over with his left arm and turned on the lamp. Currently his right hand was being held in place. It had all been the vindaloo. There wasn't any island, typewriters, pomegranates, and there was certainly no grown up Séance haranguing him. He was just in his bed back at the Academy.

When he turned on the lamp he realized the reason he couldn't move his right hand. Someone was repeatedly tugging his pajama sleeve.

"Pogo?" asked the twelve-year-old Séance, "Dad said we need to go to Washington. He says that there's something we need to do. Something for the President."

Cocking his head Pogo looked very carefully at the younger Séance. He did have to admit that the one in his dream looked very much like the little boy before him. Pogo also had the sneaky suspicion that he didn't have the imagination to come up with the version of Séance that had featured in his dream. Tiredly he got out of bed and put on his slippers.

"I'll be down in a minute Klaus," he said.

He paused for a few seconds.

"Oh, and tell your father that I'm going to be taking some leave."

"You're going somewhere?" asked a wide-eyed Séance.

"Yes," sighed Pogo, "I have to go to Saigon."


	28. Chapter 28

"Now this is proper pie."

Hazel and Cha-Cha sat in a diner on the north site of town eating blueberry-apple pie. They'd taken the last few fresh out of the oven after butchering the owner. It wasn't the best pie they'd ever tasted, but it was certainly better then that shit they'd had the night before the search for .05 started.

Cha-Cha had actually eaten about three of them. Hazel could already tell that he was feeling better. The familiar blood/sugar-lust was back in his eyes now.

"So dude," Hazel said as he waved his fork around, "We still got a few of them left to get. I mean, those last ones ran like jackrabbits."

"Totally unexpected," Cha-Cha agreed as he shoveled some more pie down, "But, we can still like, trace their signals."

"Yeah," responded Hazel, "But like, we have to get the other one next. His signal's off the map. And when I say off the map, I mean off the map and out onto the table 'ya know?"

"He's a superhero," Cha-Cha said, doing ghost hands, "I'll bet his signal goes off the table all the time. We'll just wait 'til it goes back to normal, right?"

"In the mean time," said Hazel as he wiped his lips, "We'll just have to go after the other two. Are you done?"

"Almost," said Cha-Cha, "Hey, watch this."

Using only his fork and the g-forces incurred by tilting the pan he managed to funnel almost half a pie into his mouth. His teeth moved up and down only once before he swallowed the whole thing. Hazel stared at him in amazement.

"Dude, that is awesome. Can you teach me how to do that?"

"It's actually pretty simple," Cha-Cha said, "I'll show 'ya later. It's pretty nifty."

"I can tell," Hazel said, still in awe, "Let's go kill those girls and then you have to show me. Promise?"

"Promise man."

.

.

.

Carefully Rumor snuck a glance at Vanya. She could tell what her sister was thinking. How the hell were they going to get Claire out of that thing?

"Mmphf mmmmt fmph?" Claire asked, looking panicked.

"It's nothing," Vanya said reassuringly, "We're going to get you out. Isn't that right Allison?"

Rumor put on a fake but hopefully reassuring smile. It denied the fear that sloshed in her stomach for her little daughter. All of the wires were interlocking and the damn thing looked as complicated as hell. She didn't know what to do. She felt confused and frightened. This was her daughter and because of that she could die by being torn into a million different pieces by a machine designed by maniacs.

Calmly but with trembling hands Vanya untied Claire's hands. Claire's face lit up. With a sinking feeling Rumor realized that she thought that it would be easy to free her.

"Claire," Vanya said, in a comforting tone but Rumor could hear the fear in her voice, "Do you remember when they put you into this thing?"

"Mmyth."

"Claire," wrote Rumor calmly, "Raise your hand once for yes and twice for no. Okay?"

Claire's right hand rose.

"Okay," Vanya said, "Now which wire did they lock in place last?"

Eyes closed Claire started to think. Using her left hand she pointed to one wire that interlocked and twisted with at least four others. Each other wire was slotted into a different part. Rumor had a fear that if one of them went wrong the whole stupid machine might go off. It did seem like something that the Cains might do. She looked at Vanya, who she realized was looking back at her.

"Go on," said Vanya.

"I can't," Rumor wrote, "I'm not good at these sort of things."

"My hands aren't exactly steady," said Vanya doubtfully.

"Neither are mine," scribbled Rumor.

That was true. She now regretted all those late nights spent up drinking coffee and overdosing on caffeine and pills that kept her awake. Her hands had been shaking steadily for hours now. If she got them wrong and the machine went off…she didn't like to think about it.

Vanya didn't have full control of all of her motor skills yet. Even so her hands were a little steadier then Rumor's. Not to mention the fact that she was quite good at Cat's Cradle. She had seen her doing it once with Claire on the lawn…was it only two days ago? It seemed like a lifetime had passed between then and what was going on now. She shook her head at Vanya's insistent stare.

"You have to do it," she wrote, "Please Vanya."

Gulping in air Vanya walked in front of Claire. Her fingers reached out and gripped the wire. Very carefully she unwound it from the others. It unlocked with a small click.

"Can you remember the next one?" Vanya asked, still calm but sweating.

Confidently Claire pointed to another one. She didn't know just how serious the situation was. She couldn't, or she wouldn't be so cheerful. For Rumor the pain had become like a knife slipped between her ribs. It slowly started to lessen as Vanya released wire after wire. Very soon she could make out her daughter's face.

Breathing deeply Vanya pulled away the last wire. Claire jumped out of the chair and threw herself into Rumor's arms.

"Mom!" she said.

Rumor wrapped her arms around her daughter tightly and sunk to her knees. Everything was going to be fine now. Vanya'd gotten Claire out. Everything was going to be fine now. They'd go home, or to the hospital to see Pogo. Then maybe they could go and get ice-cream. She had no idea where they'd get ice-cream at this time of night, but she knew that she could probably find a place somewhere. Everything was going to be fine.

That was the last thing she remembered thinking before bullets shattered the windows. Vanya dropped down and Rumor threw herself across her daughter's body. Claire started to whimper. Before the centralized explosion rocked the bottom floor, she realized that everything was **not **going to be okay.


	29. Chapter 29

"You know what I wonder?" Cole said, "Why the hell we're dragging a mummy through the jungle!"

"Because that mummy's gonna end the war."

Reaper watched in amusement as the two soldiers looked at Kraken with something approaching terror.

"S-sir-"

"H-hey sarge-"

"Gentleman," said Kraken, "That husk you've been slinging is Emperor Gia Long, died 1820, and he unified this country, before it split apart again. He was a symbol to the people, north and south, and a secret practitioner of the black arts. We get to the pick-up zone any minute now and we ship 'G-Long' back to Saigon, where he'll get resurrected, unleashing his terrible power on the Veit-Cong, and getting **us **home by Christmas."

Both men simply stared at him. Reaper had to suppress a chuckle.

"To be honest," Kraken sighed, "I'm not really sure I understand this myself-"

"Guys! It's not bacon, it's eggs!" Burne said excitedly as he ran up, "The guy says, 'We would but we need the'-"

He was cut-off quite suddenly by a bullet to the brain. Blood splattered everywhere and Reaper quickly aimed his gun in the direction of the bullets.

"OH MY GOD!"

"THY'RE EVERYWHERE!"

"ALPHA BRAVO! GET DOWN!" he heard Merlin yell.

Too late Reaper heeded Merlin's warning. Both he and Kraken were blown off their feet by the explosion. He knew he wasn't hurt though. All that had happened was that he had gotten his hat blown off. Pity really. Scrambling to his feet he saw Piccolo staring at the mutilated corpse of his friend.

"Jesus…Cole?" Piccolo murmured, in a daze.

"DUMBASS!" Reaper yelled, "GRAB YOUR WEAPON AND RETURN FIRE!"

"PROTECT THAT MUMMY!" Kraken shouted.

It was difficult to see who exactly Reaper was firing at. The problem was cleared up quite suddenly when he heard someone, probably Merlin, yell;

"Spiderholes!"

He turned around to fire at them. Quickly Reaper brought the one closest to him down. The world was swirling in a spray of blood, fire, and lead. Sweat ran down from his forehead and stung his eyes. They were in Hell and he was a devil destroying the souls that dared to come near him. He smiled.

"Piccolo! Pop a flare!" shouted Kraken.

At least the man had gotten into gear enough to be able to do that. As the red-flare lit up the sky Kraken muttered;

"Think you could cut a few of these guy's lines?"

Cocking his head Reaper frowned.

"They don't have any."

"What do you mean they don't have any?" Kraken hissed.

"It's because they're not alive. I think we've got some V.C.V's on our hands," grinned Reaper.

Kraken whipped around and shot one that was trying to rip out his throat. Angrily he shot at another one.

"Fuck this," he said as he picked up a portable radio, "Klaus? Where are you?"

"Codenames man! You gotta call me by my code name!" the voice on the other side insisted.

"Now Klaus!" Kraken yelled in frustration, "I've got more vampires then I know what to do with and two men down!"

"Roger Serpent!" the other voice said cheerfully, "Things got real hot real fast here, and it's a big jungle. Spirit out."

Kraken looked like he was going to try and strangle Séance through the phone. However, he was distracted by one of the vampires taking a piece out of Merlin's cheek.

"Sonofa-!" Merlin exclaimed.

"Merlin!" Kraken yelled as he shot the offending vampire, "Stay cool-!"

Soon Kraken realized that he was out of bullets and surrounded by vampires. Reaper wasn't but he liked the idea of slicing these things up better. It was so impersonal to just shoot them. Very slowly he took out the Vietnamese-style sword that had replaced his scythe in recent years.

Seconds later he was slicing in a flurry of limbs and blood. He was in the middle of it all again and once again he felt the hot adrenaline. It felt so good. It felt good to pretend that he was doing this to the Temps. He would be doing it soon. Perhaps in a few hours he'd have his revenge. The thought made him smile as he sliced one of the vampire's heads in half horizontally. Cool.

As soon as he finished beheading the last one he felt a shadow fall over him. He looked up to find a fifty foot mummy staring down at him. Apparently Gia-Long had woken up.

"So how would **this **have worked?" Kraken said in disgust.

A large explosion forced them to seek cover.

"My brother's an idiot," groaned Kraken.

"I couldn't agree more," Reaper said.

"You have a brother?" asked Piccolo in disbelief.

"Sarge!" Merlin said, pointing, "Up in the air!"

Reaper smirked as he saw Space fly through the air and sucker-punch Gia-Long's head off and into oblivion.

"He's got a couple," Reaper said.

As soon as Spaceboy touched down he saw the rest of the platoon train their guns on him.

"What the hell kinda-?" Merlin exclaimed.

Reaper rolled his eyes. These boys would shoot cans if they were in the air.

"Stand down boys. He's with me."

The two brothers walked over to sit on one of the dead Emperor's arms. Reaper then noticed that what was left of the platoon was looking at him, expecting answers. Sighing Reaper knew that the next few minutes would be very interesting, and very frustrating, indeed.

.

.

.

"You done feeling sorry for yourself?" Space asked as they sat down.

Kraken shot him a harsh look.

"What makes you think I'm feeling sorry for myself?" he snapped.

Space gave a half-hearted shrug.

"Nothing much. Just you volunteering to go off with Mister Insane over there."

"I just needed to clear my head," said Kraken sharply.

"For three years?" Space asked as he raised an eyebrow.

Irritably Kraken drummed his fingers up against the Mummy's arm. His brother was getting uncomfortably close to home.

"It's nothing."

"Bullshit," Space said, "Because the thing is you ran away before we ever got to Vietnam. This is about Vanya."

Kraken's first instinct was to say something derogatory and try to stab his brother with anything. Yet, he felt too tired to try something like that. Instead he decided to try the truth for once.

"No," he sighed, "it's me."

Scratching the back of his neck he continued;

"Hell, she's never going to love me without those memories and I know it. I was always surprised that she loved me with them. Being out here makes you think though. I decided on something."

He stood up and Space followed him.

"I'm gonna tell her how I feel when I get back. It might not be right or normal for me to do something like that under the circumstances but-"

"Allison once told me that a normal life isn't an option for any of us," interrupted Space, "She said, what was it again…? Ah yes, 'Screw Normal'. It's worked pretty well for me so far."

Kraken adjusted his hat and glared over at his brother.

"Stop rubbing it in," he snapped.

Any reply that Space would've had was drowned out by the approaching helicopter.


	30. Chapter 30

"Book depository coming up," one of the ambulance drivers said.

"Kill the lights and drop your speed!" .05 ordered.

Alchemist looked at him thoughtfully as she chewed her gum. He was enjoying this. Interesting. She might be more engaged if her sister's life wasn't on the line and she wasn't wearing some stupid clothing from the sixties. There was a reason why no one dressed like this anymore. It was a **very **good reason too.

"Ears on me people!" .05 said snappishly, "Right now, my old self is holed up on the sixth floor of the book depository listening to freeform jazz on an eyedropper full of pure L.S.D. We'll attempt to reason with him, but as you've all seen, I'm not exactly a reasonable man. Odds are this is going to turn into a shooting gallery."

"But no one, I repeat, **no one **is to mortally wound my past self, lest I cease to exist. Red team on me, you know the drill, run in and get killed. Blue team, you have your orders. Stick to the plan and avoid exposure at all costs. Mr. Pennycrumb stays in the ambulance with the white team, and he eats only soft food."

Looking down Alchemist made a face at the little puppy. Why did he decide to bring that stupid thing along?

"Red team **Go!**" .05 shouted, "Set up a confusion beacon and chaos damper, we don't want to attract attention if the bullets start flying. Blue and white, meet back at the rendezvous point and await extraction! You got that?!"

"IT SIMPLY MUST BE DONE!" the Blue team said obediently.

All of them said it, all of them except Alchemist. She blew a bubble and popped it noisily. .05 smiled patronizingly at her.

"Aren't you going to join in on the group chant?" he asked, "And you know, he told you not to chew gum on the mission."

"Bite me," she snapped.

In retaliation .05 slammed the ambulance doors shut loudly. Irritably Alchemist removed the gum and tucked it behind her ear.

"All right, let's go kill us a president," .05 said smugly, "Before someone gets a crazy idea and tries to stop us."

That was the last thing she heard before the ambulance began driving away. Quietly she observed the other few people in the car. None of them were giving her the time of day. None of them had actually tried to strike up a conversation since they found out that she wasn't a Temp. Perhaps they thought that she wasn't worth it. They probably were under some sort of impression that she was weak. Just like .05 they were patronizing. Good.

Presently the ambulance pulled into an abandoned lot. All of the members of the Temps got their guns out and started to make sure that they were properly loaded and cleaned. Alchemist smiled pleasantly at them.

"Well aren't **you** a bunch of tigers."

"Excuse me?" one of the Temps asked indignantly.

"So hungry," she continued, still smiling, "So poised…all sharp teeth and swagger. A tiger shows a hundred stripes but I know it has more than that. A tiger hides them. Do you know where it keeps them?"

They were still all swaggers and winks. Not one of them had noticed that she had slipped her watch off her wrist and into her hand. Out of the corner of her eye she could see the driver roll his eyes. One of the Temps said indulgently;

"No."

Quickly she changed her watch into an imitation of the Temps Aeternalis's guns and shot him through the eye.

"Here's a hint."

Before the nearest one could react she kicked him square in the chest. She could hear the satisfying crunch of bone as his sternum and ribs cracked. Her heel had just come in contact with his heart when she threw out her gun and shot another in the throat. Narrowly she dodged the last one's shot before blasting his brains out. Now there were only the two in the front to deal with.

One of them had jerked the car around the corner, slamming her into the back doors so hard that they flew open. She hit the ground rolling, but hard. She felt pain but this was all just part of the plan. Steadily she got onto all fours, resting her hands on the parking barrier. She grinned as the car started to turn around in an attempt to hit her.

Alchemist waited patiently. It was getting closer now, only a few yards away. She waited a little more. Anyone who could see her grin at that moment would be terrified. Still she waited. She knew that the drivers were feeling confident now, which was just what she wanted them to be feeling.

When the ambulance was a mere five feet away she picked up the parking barrier and turned it into a metal wall. The brakes of the ambulance screeched but it was far too late. She saw one of the drivers go flying out and splatter his brains all over the pavement. She jerked her body to the side quickly to avoid a wheel that had come off of the ambulance.

"Fast," she said to herself, pleased, "Too fast…"

From where she was she could see that the driver who had rolled his eyes was still alive. That was what she had intended. She walked up to him casually. His eyes were wide and terrified as she leaned through the window and smiled at him.

"I am in the jungle and I am too fast for you," she laughed, "You have teeth and stripes and things that tear. But I am much too fast. You want my flesh but you don't know where the jungle is…only I know where the jungle is…only I know."

Then Alchemist paused, an epiphany coming over her.

"I am a hyena."

She watched the driver's eyes grow even wider with fear and she half-laughed, half-screamed out;

"I AM A HYENA AND THE JUNGLE IS MY HOME!"

Her laughter rang across the parking lot and echoed from the buildings. After a few minutes she stopped and looked at the driver speculatively. Smoothly she pulled the gun out from earlier and waved it at the man.

"Now," she said, "I have a very big gun and I want to know something."

"Wh…what…do you…want to know?" the man gasped in terror, "I'll…I'll tell you anything!"

"Well that's good," she said as she plucked the gum from behind her ear and put it back in her mouth, "I want to know where my sister is. Her name's Cat."


	31. Chapter 31

Alchemist walked briskly up the stairs. The five agents she'd killed on her way up there softened her footfalls. Well, not softened exactly. It was like goosh, goosh, goosh, all the way up. The chomping noise she made as she chewed her gum went well with it. Kind of like some sort of bizarre orchestra.

When she opened the door to the room she had to kill another two Temps. They weren't even expecting her. Where did they pick these guys up anyways? The streets? At any other time she would've been disappointed that they put up so little of a fight. Now she was just in a hurry. She had to find Cat before that fish bastard decided to go back on his word. He didn't look particularly trustworthy.

Looking around Alchemist noticed a side door. She tried the doorknob. Unsurprisingly it was locked. It came down easily enough with a roundhouse kick.

"HIYA!" she cried for good measure.

At first she really couldn't see anything into the room. That was, of course, because the light wasn't on. No matter, that was easily remedied. As soon as she found the damned thing of course. So it was after a few minutes of groping around blindly that she actually found the switch and turned on the lights.

For a few moments Alchemist stared at her unconscious sister. Some complete bastard had tied her to a chair. Her head was slumped forward, spilling out over her. She got up close and looked at her, brushing a few strands away from her face.

"It's gonna be okay," she said, "Come on Cat, come on."

Gently she started to untie the ropes. As she did something caught her eye. Carefully Alchemist picked up the palm of Cat's hand and turned it over. Scars criss-crossed it like a checkerboard. Those scars were new. Taking in a deep breath Alchemist brushed some more hair away from her sister's face. Without the hair as a shield it revealed that there were more scars along her collarbone and up her neck.

"Jesus Cat," Alchemist whispered.

Cat groaned but didn't wake-up. Very gently Alchemist continued to untie the ropes that bound her. Someone had hurt her sister and then tried to cover it up. She had a pretty good idea who too. She had finished and was about to pick Cat up when she heard a fizzing noise from one of the Temps that she'd killed.

"Agent 10:45?" the communicator asked.

Alchemist grinned wickedly as she picked it up.

"Hell-o cat food," she said, "I'm sorry that your agent can't pick up, but he's suffering from technical difficulties. His arms aren't attached to the rest of him anymore you see and I think his heart is where his esophagus should be but what can I say? You can't get good help these days."

There was silence on the other end of the communicator. Finally the voice said;

"What do you think you're doing Ms. Cain?"

"Well," she said, "You tortured and captured my sister. Do you think I'd let you get away with that? I am sooooooooo pissed off right now you wouldn't believe it."

"Ms. Cain," the Shubunkin said firmly, "Stop toying with what you can't beat-"

"Don't give me that 'I'm so untouchable' bullshit 'cause you're not," she snorted, "You hurt my sister you son of a bitch. That makes you **very **perishable in my sight and I'm just thinking about all the lovely little ways that I can kill you."

"Ms. Cain-"

"But it won't just be me," Alchemist said brightly, "You see, I'm pissed right now. But Reaper, he's going to be fucking furious. And do you wanna know what? Compared to Reaper I'm the Queen of the Sugar Plum fairies."

"We had a deal," the Shubunkin said coldly.

"Oh that?" Alchemist asked, surprised, "What made you think that I was going back on **that**?"

.

.

.

"K-killing me won't save the president-" .05 gasped.

"Put him **down **Kraken," Space said slowly.

The Hargreeves boys and Reaper were looking at the scene oddly and not without shock. They'd used the televator that Séance had built to get there about five minutes ago. They'd just seen that the old .05 took out the Temps and then left. Something unexpected had happened though.

Kraken had seemed oddly offbeat in the televator on the way here. This was something completely different from 'tense' though. This was murderous.

"Shut up," snarled Kraken back, still holding .05 in the air, "You're beat .05. The old you took out all the other gunmen."

"Kraken," .05 said, a little tiredly and completely out of breath, "I've killed a lot of people. I mean, **a lot**. But this one's something special…my old boss…he knew that **I **wouldn't be able to make it…this time. He knew…I couldn't beat myself…I wasn't supposed to kill Kennedy. I'm…I'm a distraction."

"From what?!" Kraken yelled.

"Her."

BANG!

.

.

.

On the other side of the square Alchemist withdrew the rifle. She thought that the sound that echoed across the street was oddly satisfying. So were the screams of terrified pedestrians.

"See?" she said into the communicator, "All done."

There was silence on the other end of the communicator.

"If you were going to do it anyways then why kill my agents? As you said, it's difficult to find good help."

"Because I don't trust you," she shrugged as she turned the rifle back into a hairpin, "I just wanted things to be insured. Now don't change the subject. Do you have any idea how much shit you're in now that you've fucked with us?"

"Oh please," the Shubunkin said, "Don't threaten me-"

"I'm not threatening," she said, "I'm just stating a fact. Reaper will not be happy when he finds you. Not one bit. And he will find you."

With that Alchemist clicked off the communicator before turning back to her injured sister. She didn't even notice the four Temps behind her.

"Take that fish-boy," she said smugly as one of the Temps raised a gun to her head.

To be honest Alchemist probably never would've known about the four people about to kill her. However, something happened that she didn't exactly see but more heard. And all she heard was a flurry of feathers and guns clattering to the floor. This was accompanied by a muffled yell, several thumps, and a loud crashing like that of glass. Alchemist frowned and turned around.

What she saw defied any explanation she cared to give. There were four laser guns scattered across the floor and three fresh corpses. She couldn't see the fourth, but she figured that his absence had something to do with the large hole in the window. These things weren't particularly important to her though. It was the other person in the room that she was looking at. It was a ghost. It had to be.

"Ryuk?" she whispered in disbelief.

The person turned to stare at her, although she couldn't see his eyes beneath his heavy bang.

"Ryuk, you died," she said faintly, detaching herself from the wall and coming forward, "We all thought you'd died…"

Before she reached him the figure turned away. She reached her arm out as though to grab his arm. Unexpectantly her hand didn't make contact with flesh. What it made contact with was slippery, like feathers. Something came off as she struggled to get a better grip. She didn't quite manage it though and very easily he slipped out of her grasp and ran down the stairs.

Still in shock Alchemist looked at what had come off in her hand. It was a pitch-black feather. She stared at it and turned it over. It was very slick and shiny looking almost wet in the light. It also looked like it belonged to a very large bird. Perhaps it was a raven or a crow. She grasped it tightly.

Biting her lip she looked at the sky. She had never been particularly religious. Ryuk was dead though. She was quite sure about that. He had died in one of Lenore's sick experiments. They all knew that. The explosion was terrible. Reaper had only just managed to save Cat. So the idea that Ryuk could've survived without assistance was remarkable to say the least. She turned that thought over as she pocketed the feather. Yes, he must've died. Then why…?

Perhaps, if the feather was any indication…maybe the Cains had a guardian angel after all. Shaking her head she gently picked up Cat and left the building.


	32. Chapter 32

"Wow," Reaper said as Kennedy collapsed in the back seat, "I was not expecting Athena to be here. Good shot though."

Kraken threw .05 to the ground and rounded on him. Even Séance felt that his brother deserved a good hiding.

"Good **shot**?" he hissed.

"Yeah," Reaper said, "I mean, judging by the fact that the car was moving at about thirty miles an hour and that she was stationary the entire time-"

"Will you shut the fuck up!?" Kraken yelled, "Do you never shut up!?"

"Obviously not," Reaper frowned, "What's the big deal? Kennedy was going to die anyways. Something abou tkeeping the time stream consistent and all that."

"He's got a point you know," said .05 as he got to his feet, "This would've happened one way or another."

Séance looked at the ceiling as Space snapped;

"Nothing has to happen any way that we don't want it to."

"You actually believe that?" .05 asked.

"Yes."

"Then you're an even bigger idiot then I thought you were."

The atmosphere in the room became tense. Honestly Séance couldn't blame them. Three years had gone by. They'd waited and sacrificed three years of their life to try to make sure that this didn't happen. Well it had. They'd looked left when they should've looked right. Something was starting to snap in Séance as he realized that there was really nothing left for it. All they could do was go home now.

Oh, and get Claire back. Yeah. They had to do that too. He was always so busy.

"Stop arguing," Séance sighed, "Just get us home…"

"No you don't," Reaper said, "I'm still here to kill this guy's boss. If you all have some sort of problem with that-"

"Wasn't that a good shot?" sang Alchemist as she waltzed into the room, Cat in her arms, "Now .05 you should get me home before I have to get there mysel-"

She stopped short when she saw her brother staring at her.

"Hey Neil!" she said, "What are you doing here? On second thought, don't answer that question. Long story I'm geussing. But look what I got."

Alchemist jerked her head in Cat's direction. Reaper stared at her for awhile.

"Is she…?"

"Alive? Why wouldn't she be?" she said, "That fish bastard set this up though. We're going to have to get him back you realize."

Very calmly Reaper walked up to her.

"I can take her now," he said quietly.

Shrugging Alchemist passed her to him. Cat groaned at the shift in motion and opened her eyes.

"That's very curious," she remarked slowly, taking in her siblings, "but everything's been curious today."

"Yeah," he said, smiling, "Yeah. It has. We're going home now though."

Gently he kissed her on the forehead. Séance made a face.

"This is **really **akward," he said in disgust.

"Shut up pasty-boy," Alchemist snapped.

Huffing angrily Séance looked at .05 who was recalibrating his time manipulator.

"Let's just get back," he hissed.

.

.

.

In a flash of blinding white light the Umbrella Academy and the Sentinels were deposited back in the City. Spaceboy looked around and sighed. There had been nothing he could've done in the face of Kennedy's assasination. It still stung. He could think about it later though. There were more important things to worry about.

"We've done what you've asked," he said to Reaper, "Now where's Claire?"

For a minute Reaper looked at him blankly. Then he nodded.

"What time is it?" he asked Alchemist.

"About nine thirty," she replied.

"A.M?"

"A.M."

"Is it still Tuesday?" he asked.

"Wednsday now," Alchemist sighed.

"Shit."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Space snapped.

"Well done everyone."

Everyone turned and looked at the Shubunkin, who was standing by an ice cream cart surrounded by fifteen Temps.

"Now I think you could've done it faster," he said, "But you did get it done."

"You son of a bitch," Alchemist said, taking a step forward.

"Athena," Reaper cautioned, "Cool it."

She looked at him in disbelief.

"He tortured Cat!" she yelled.

For a minute something flashed in his eyes. Then he passed Cat to Alchemist and took a step forward. All of the Temps trained their guns on him.

"Relax," he said as he stretched his arms behind his back, "Do forgive my sister, she tends to get overexcited sometimes. Now would I be correct in supposing that you are the boss here?"

"I'm glad to hear that. You should probaly consider getting her comitted," the Shubunkin said, "And I am in charge."

"Good," he said.

Quickly he wipped out the sword that was strapped to his back. With fifteen quick movements he cut the lines of the fifteen Temps. As they fell to the ground he smashed through the glass of the Shubunkin's tank.

"Not as excitable but a hell of a lot angrier you fucking bastard," he grinned, "How should I kill you? I don't usually go for killing goldfish but I think I'll make an exception here."

"No you won't."

.05 walked up to Reaper, looking serious.

"Looks like I forgot one employee," Reaper growled.

"No," he said, "I don't owe any loyalty to this shithead. He cut out my humanity with a scalpel like a malignancy and turned me into an assasin. **I've **been imagining this moment for years. **I **want to be the one who kills him."

Running his hands through his hair Space sighed as he watched the two sociopaths try to stare each other down. Finally Reaper shrugged and handed him the flailing Shubunkin.

"All yours."

Grasping it in his hand .05 opened his mouth and swallowed. Even Kraken grimaced.

"Okay," said Séance, walking away with a drained expression, "After all the crazy crap I've seen over the last four years, this is the one that broke the camel's back."

Space was inclined to agree with him. Swallowing a goldfish? However there was still one more thing he needed to deal with. He walked over to the Cains. Alchemist had turned a lamp post into a candy-apple red convertible. Reaper was just about to get in when Space stopped him.

"Where's Claire?" he repeated.

Reaper slid in and stuck his head out the window.

"Look," he said, "Do you wanna see the detonater?"

He tossed a small box to Space. Looking closely he realized that it was a painted cardboard box.

"Athena made it look like something else, but like all things her charm ran out after a couple of hours," he said, "There were never any detonaters. We're not that technically minded you know."

"So there's no machine?" he asked, glaring at Reaper.

"No," he said, "There's a machine alright. See, the thing is is that we set it to go off in six hours if we didn't disarm it first."

"We figured that sounded right," Alchemist shrugged, "If we hadn't disarmed it by then then you'd either failed or killed us. Six hours was the furthest it would go up to anyways."

"But the six hours ran out thirty minutes ago," Reaper said, "Sorry, but your niece is dead. Step on it Athena."

"WHAT!" Space roared.

Too late the car shot like a streak of greased red lightning down the road. Space couldn't pursue them. He didn't have the energy. Turning around he saw Kraken and .05 staring at him. He buried his face in his hands. Claire was dead. His niece, his laughing little niece was dead. What was he going to tell Rumor?


	33. Chapter 33

Wednsday, 9:25 a.m

"So which one is the restorer gun and which one is the laser?" Cha-Cha asked, confused as they walked across the boardwalk that connected the two buildings.

Firing from one building onto another had been a piece of cake. Getting there was just as easy. Trying to figure out all this weird machinery the Temps had given them was hard as hell.

"Dude," Hazel said, "The one with the brown stripe is the restorer and the one with the burgandy stripe is the laser."

"But burgandy is practically brown," frowned Cha-Cha as he looked at the two guns, "It's just a variant."

"Yeah," sighed Hazel, "The equipment is getting a little funny with their weapons these days. Now, what have we here?"

The purple-haired one had gotten up and started firing at them. Almost lazily Cha-Cha shot her with his gun, didn't know which. Hazel and him hadn't even had to take cover from her. She fell and he heard some rather high-pitched screaming. Geez, that sounded pretty good actually. Much better then the kind of deep-throated ones they'd gotten from that pie maker. He'd have to tell this to Hazel later on.

He strolled into the apartment casually, Hazel right behind him. Their feet crunched on glass as they moved. Cha-Cha paused and looked over the two Hargreeves sisters. One was on the floor and another was moving forwards from the wall next to some weird chair thing complete with helmet. She stopped when she saw them. That's right. Stop. He could just see her trying to figure out the cartoon masks. Hilarious.

Two was his count. He wasn't counting the little one that was shaking the purple-haired one though. She was pretty small after all and he didn't count halves. Why did they make kids so darn small? That was kinda hilarious too if he thought about it. However, he could think abou thow hilarious it was after they got the job done. It had been fun but like all jobs they were just there to kill people.

"So," Hazel asked, "What's up with the freaky apartment people? Or the kid? On second thought scratch all of that. For us don't know equals don't care."

"Except how they get cream inside Ding-Dongs," Cha-Cha corrected.

"Oh, yeah. Totally want to know how they do that," Hazel agreed, "I think they use those injectors like they do with doughnuts."

"Are you kidding me?" Cha-Cha said, "I think that they bake it in. That's the only way to account for the fact that the dough and the cream seem to be melded together. That's the only way it makes sense."

"Yeah but then the sugar would've burnt," frowned Hazel.

Out of the corner of his eye Cha-Cha saw the white one start to edge twoards her gun. He gestured to Hazel who went up quickly and twisted her arm behind her back. He made a tsking noise.

"No trigger-finger please," Hazel said.

"Or what?" she said, her voice trembling slightly as she gave nervous glances at the little girl, still trying to shake the other one awake, "You're just going to kill us anyways."

"Well yeah," said Cha-Cha, "but cooperating decides whether we burry you in one coffin-"

"Or several," Hazel finished, "Look, Cha-Cha, I think we're going to have wrap this up. Just kill her and kill the kid for good measure."

"Why do you have to kill **her**?" the white girl said, panicked.

Cha-Cha rolled his eyes. When did they ever learn? Why was she so concerned about the kid anyways? She was actually getting kinda annoying now.

"Like I said, it's just good measure."

"Don't you think it's over doing it though? I mean, just a little bit?"

"Hey, more blood that way man."

"Point taken."

The white one then rammed into Hazel, hard. It made him lose his grip and balnace. He stumbled and she shoved him again. He flew towards the chair. For a moment he stared at the girl, who now had two lasers trained on her.

"Looks like we're going to have to do several coffins-" he started.

Hazel was abruptly cut off when a mechanical voice said;

"Initiating beginning sequence 21498."

Before Cha-Cha could wonder what the hell sequence 21498 was the helmet part of the chair clamped over Hazel's head. The next few seconds were terribly slow and at the same time insanely fast. First the wires locked over Hazel's face and then different flecks of skull, brains, cerebrospinal fluid, and cartoon mask were flying all over the room. Even the white girl seemed surprised at what was happening. All too soon his partner was dead.

Shaking with rage Cha-Cha tightened his grip on his laser.

"**TOTAL **UNCOOL!" he shouted.

He turned the laser on the little brat. The white girl screamed something and the girl covered her head. Just when he was about to pull the trigger he heard a voice say;

"I heard a rumor that those lasers can blow any time, resulting in 95% fatal user injuries."

The laswer exploded and took his arm off. Cha-Cha gave a little hiss of pain, glaring at the purple-haired woman who was now getting to her feet.

"Must've been the restorer gun I shot you with," he laughed.

"Nobody threatens my daughter you son of a bitch," she snarled, "I heard a rumor that shock from laser arm loss results in death."

.

.

.

"Mom!" Claire screamed, running into Rumor's arms.

She felt her mother hug her tightly.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

"Of course I am!" said Claire, "I knew you were going to save me, I knew it. I wasn't scared, not even for a moment. I wasn't."

The tears that came and soaked into her mother's coat showed her statement for the lie that it was. Nonetheless Rumor didn't say anything. She just picked her up and started wiping them away.

"You okay too Vanya?"

"Shaken beyond belief," said Vanya, who was splattered with different shades of red, "but I'll get over it."

For a long while Claire saw her mother stare at her aunt. Finally she said;

"Thanks."

"No problem."

Then her mother turned back to her and smiled.

"I think it's time to go home Claire."


	34. Chapter 34

Space walked slowly and tiredly into the Hargreeves manor. It had not been a good day. Hell, it had not been a good three years. First they had failed to save Kennedy. Then they found out what had happened to Claire. Now it appeared that he had to break the news to Rumor that he had failed her daughter too. He was not looking forward to that at all.

Dragging his feet Spaceboy walked into the living room. For the past few hours he'd wandered the city in a vain attempt to put this moment off. He could see Rumor sitting on the couch looking like she'd never gone to sleep. Space had been holding on to the vague hope that she might've done so and he could postpone it. He gulped deeply.

"Allison-" he started.

"Shhhhhh," she said, "You'll wake her."

Staring at her in shock he walked to the other side of the couch. What he saw there surprised him even more.

"Claire?" he whispered.

Nodding Rumor smiled. Claire was asleep, curled up in Rumor's arms. He sat down very gently.

"How…?"

"My voice or my daughter?" she asked, smiling again.

"Both," he said, still in shock.

"Well they're both kind of a long story," she said, "Kind of like what happened to you I suppose. They're best both saved for later. It's been a very long night."

Space could agree with her on that one.

"Still," she said, "You might need to know that Pogo's in the hospital. The doctors say he's going to be fine but he needs a few days of bed rest. Vanya's got her memories and movement back too. She really came through for us."

She laughed softly when she saw him just blink at her.

"Like I said," she grinned, "A long story."

Looking from Claire to Rumor Space sighed. Then he laid his arm across the top of the couch so he could pull her into a hug.

"It's good to hear you voice again," he said simply.

.

.

.

It was actually night again before Kraken came back to his room. He'd spent the day roaming the rooftops of the City. Once he'd found a quiet corner tucked away from the mainstream traffic and looked at his an old war photo of his platoon. Soon he would have to go and meet them at the memorial. He doubted that he could do it though.

Perhaps he had belonged there amid the chaos and bloodshed. All of that had made a hell of a lot more sense then what was going on here. Strangely enough he had felt like he'd had a purpose there as well. Also, in its own way it had been fun to have that much adrenaline pouring into his veins. Simple questions like life and death had a simple answer and a clear course of action. He was an animal when it came down to it.

Now he was faced with some rather difficult decisions that required some hard thinking. Where was he supposed to go now? The obvious answer was back to the Hargreeves mansion. In the very least all of his stuff was there. The next question was rather more difficult. What was he supposed to **do **now?

No matter what he was he knew he couldn't stay with the Umbrella Academy a minute longer. He was just going to go back to his old hideout. After his experiences he hated them all and for completely different reasons. Kraken knew that leaving would mean leaving Vanya too and that hurt like hell. Yet, unlike what he'd told Space, he knew that he just couldn't tell her. That would be excellent, having someone you barely knew saying that you'd been lovers. That would make things just so much better.

So he'd decided against it in the end. Just like he had so many years ago he was going to leave without a word. That would be the best thing he could do for the family and probably for her as well. A parting gift if you would, a parting gift of not-fucking-up-your-life-further. It seemed small to him but she would probably appreciate it in the years to come.

That night he pushed open the front door. In the past he had always used a window but it seemed pointless now. As he clumped past the living room he heard a voice say;

"Mom, can I have ice cream?"

"If you go to bed on time then you can have all the ice cream you want."

"Yay!"

He paused and looked into the room. Claire was alive and Rumor could speak. How about that? That was a bit of a curveball. For a moment he thought about saying something to them. He ended up going up the stairs. It wasn't really his thing, domesticity. At least one of them had their lives together though. He would too as soon as he packed his bags. Taking the stairs two at a time he reached his room quickly.

A light shone under the door. He could see a shadow moving under it, blocking the light. Someone was in there already. Kraken clenched his fists. Whoever was in there was going to have hell to pay. In one swift movement he flung open the door and stomped inside. The door banged behind him uselessly.

"Hey Diego," Vanya said, licking her lips.

On a scale of one to ten on how bad the situation made him feel it would be a twenty. This was just what he needed right now. Angrily he crossed his arms.

"What are you doing in here?"

Yes. That was how he did things. When you were confronted by something that hurt you just got angry.

"I needed to talk to you," she said quietly.

"If this is about what Alchemist said, that bitch is out of her mind," Kraken snorted, "Now if you would please leave-"

"I'm not going anywhere," she snapped.

He couldn't do this. Not again, not now.

"Oh stop the damned games Vanya," he snapped back.

"Once again," she said, "you fail to realize that I'm not playing games."

Kraken was about to say something biting back when her words sank in. **Once again** you fail to realize that I'm not playing games. Months ago when they'd first…she'd said something about not playing games then too. Did she…? No, she couldn't. She couldn't remember.

Vanya's expression changed as his mouth opened and closed incomprehensibly.

"I do remember," she said, "I'm not exactly sure how myself, but I do remember. Everything. I'm back Diego."

He stared at her for a few minutes. Mostly he didn't quite understand what she was saying. Kraken couldn't have gotten it all back after so long. Vanya laughed nervously.

"Aren't you going to say anything?" she asked.

Very slowly Kraken walked up to her until he was only a few inches away. He could see her bite her lip as she tried in vain to gauge his reaction. She was actually nervous that he might not want her.

"Diego?" she said.

His arms wrapped around her, crushing her to him. He knew that his grip would leave bruises but it was impossible to loosen it. No one could make him do that. Never again. His lips brushed up against her ear as he whispered;

"I missed you."

Tears spilled from her eyes onto his face as he felt her arms snake up his back.

"I missed you too."


	35. Chapter 35

The next morning Kraken finished his rudimentary spot check on combing his hair. In other words, if it looked like something had been living in it then comb it. If not then leave it as it was. After about a minute he put the comb down. Then he walked out of the adjoining bathroom and took a seat down by the bed, folding his hands.

Vanya was still asleep and he'd seen no reason to wake her. Apparently there'd been some events with Claire that were still not completely explained but had been tiring. It looked like the last few hours hadn't been good fro any of them. Usually Kraken had gotten off with a handful of hours of sleep each night anyway, so it wasn't any big deal for him. Vanya was a different matter though. She shifted in her sleep and and he smiled to himself.

At that moment he felt oddly at peace. Why? It was because he understood now. Everything seemed so obvious when he paused to think about it actually. She wouldn't leave him. She had never left him, not really. What made him so confident? The answer was simple. He knew now that Vanya would always come back to him. It didn't matter what it was that was taking her away. There was no difference between the years, killer aliens, or damage to her brain. In the end she would come back to him.

Which actually made a surprising amount of sense. She was his now so it was logical that she would stay with him. He wasn't quite sure how long this had been the arrangement. Perhaps it was when he rescued her from the muggers all those months ago. He had a feeling that it had been going on for much longer then that though.

It wasn't just a one sided agreement either. If it had been then it probably wouldn't mean so much to either of them and the relationship would've ended a long time ago. Yet, it wasn't. Kraken was irrevocably hers too. It was something that he was able and actually quite grateful to acknowledge. Maybe it wasn't in the same sense, but he was hers. He would never look at another woman. Kraken would never leave her. He would always wait for her.

Hell, he thought that she hadn't wanted him when she'd left for college. That thought had been hard for him but he'd accepted it. Kraken hadn't moved on though. Truthfully he'd actually waited for over ten years on the off chance that she would come back. Yes, with a word she could grant his wish or take it away. He was hers just as much as she was his.

Kraken smiled again at that thought. It was a good one. He had never belonged to anyone. Now he did. He hadn't had anything of his own in his entire life. Now he did though. That was probably why he knew that what he was going to suggest would work. It was odd to have that feeling of reassurance. Yet, he couldn't see it any other way.

Vanya's eyes twitched slightly before opening. He reached out a hand.

"Morning," he murmured as he caressed her face.

"G'morning," she mumbled sleepily.

"You can always go back to sleep you know," he smirked.

"No," she said, pushing herself up, "I'm awake now."

Now was the time. Before speaking Kraken chose his words carefully.

"That's good. Vanya, there's something I need to talk to you about."

.

.

.

"Look how far I can climb!" Claire proclaimed as she grabbed another branch of the tree that was nearly as tall as the manor.

"Don't hurt yourself, you hear?" Rumor called back up to her.

Claire giggled as if to say how silly her mother was. Rumor knew that her daughter was a good climber but she couldn't help but worry. Of course, that was probably natural considering what had happened the night before.

"I geuss she's not going back to Patrick's then?" Vanya said, walking up from behind her.

"Not if he wants to keep all of his fingers," Rumor said firmly, "That bastard probably didn't even know she was missing."

For awhile the sisters watched Claire move higher and higher up the tree. Rumor and Vanya had never been particularly close. Yet, now Rumor felt some sort of friendship. Surviving two maniacs by yourself to rescue a young family member probably did that to you. Not to mention spending time with each other when one was an amnesiac helped. That actually reminded her of something.

"How'd it go with Diego?" Rumor asked cautiously.

"Fine," Vanya said.

Vanya's clipped tone told Rumor there was something she wasn't telling her.

"Fine?" Rumor repeated.

Tiredly Vanya drummed her fingers on her arm.

"He told me he wants to leave the Academy," she said, "again."

"Does he want you to go with him?"

"Obviously," Vanya smiled, "He just wants to leave this house."

"When?"

Vanya's tone was terse and irritated.

"Today, around noon."

Checking her watch Rumor saw that it was already 11:30.

"Leaving's a problem?" asked Rumor, raising her eyebrow, "I thought that you wouldn't be able to get out of here fast enough."

"What about you?" Vanya shot back, "I know you hated this place. Why don't you leave?"

"Luther's here," she said unconvincingly.

"Luther could be anywhere," replied Vanya.

"What are you trying to say?" Rumor said irritably.

"I'm just saying we can leave whenever we want," Vanya said, "We're not prisoners here anymore. But I think Diego still believes we can get away from all that shit that went down here when we were kids if we leave. He should know better than that."

Rumor looked at her in surprise. Vanya sighed with a touch of frustration.

"We can't escape from any of this," she said, "That's not how it works. If you get sick in a house then you can't escape the sickness if you leave. The disease goes with you. Look at the Cains. They got rid of their 'mother' when they were fifteen and they're still insane."

"And still out there," Rumor added her eyes narrowing, "I don't like the fact that they can waltz in and out of our lives. We're going to have to get rid of them once and for all one day. They're too dangerous to be allowed to walk free."

"I agree with you there," nodded Vanya.

"I've got a score to settle with them," Rumor said, "I am going to kill them for what they did to Claire."

"Yeah," she said, "The people who raised us both left us sicker then dogs."

"Vanya, the way you said that it's like you think that something's wrong with us."

Although Rumor had intended it as a joke all she got from Vanya was a mirthless laugh.

"There **is **something wrong with us Allison. Whether we choose to ignore it or not is up to us but we're not normal. You can't say we're normal."

"No," Rumor admitted, "I can't."

Claire let out a cry of triumph as she reached the top of the tree. Rubbing her temples Vanya said;

"It's just I feel so tired of trying to run away from everything then realizing that we can't," said Vanya, sounding exhausted.

There was a pause.

"We do always end up coming back here," Rumor said, "Don't we?"

"Yes," Vanya said, "But I don't think that Diego knows that yet. Even admitting it aloud doesn't make it feel any realer. We're all messed up in some form or another."

Once more there was a pause.

"But he really wants to leave," Vanya sighed, "He really wants to give it another shot. If he hates this place so badly then I don't want to keep him here. I love him too much to put him through this again, especially considering what's happened over the past few months. So that's why I'm going with him. I'm pretty sure he knew I was going to go along with it anyhow."

"Kind of frustrating, isn't it?" asked Rumor.

"Kind of," Vanya agreed.

"You take care of yourself," Rumor said as Claire got down from the tree and started running towards them, "And keep in touch. Let's try to keep **some **of the family together."

"I will," Vanya said, "Don't worry."

Vanya started to walk away as Claire ran to Rumor for a victory hug. As Rumor swept Claire up she called after Vanya;

"Don't let Diego tell Luther about this. I don't want him to get any ideas. There's no way I'm going to the Moon."

This time Vanya gave a genuine laugh.


End file.
